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nancyflanagan 's review for:
Smokin' Seventeen
by Janet Evanovich
A Janet Evanovich/Stephanie Plum book is like the gooey dessert already cut and sitting at your plate at a banquet dinner. It looks good, and you know you'll enjoy the first couple of bites--but if you eat the whole thing, it will be cloying.
I told myself I was through with Stephanie, Lula, Joe, and Ranger. (Grandma Mazur--maybe I could use some more of her.) I resisted, for a long time. Then I saw "Smokin'" sitting on top of the "hot titles" rack at the library, and grabbed it, on impulse. Although I brought seven more books home with me, I turned to "Smokin'" first. Read it in an afternoon. And the first few chapters were fun. Like seeing old friends, laughing at the familiar dialogue.
And then it got stupid. Really stupid. Cars burn up. People get shot. People get buried. Pointless characters do pointless things. Stephanie acts like an idiot, repeatedly. The Stephanie-Joe-Ranger love triangle heats up, cools down, heats up.
How much more of this can we take, until the series moves in a new direction? Evanovich has a great, light touch with dialogue and builds Jersey humor into crime fiction. But these characters aren't going anyplace. Ever. We're reading the same book over and over again.
I told myself I was through with Stephanie, Lula, Joe, and Ranger. (Grandma Mazur--maybe I could use some more of her.) I resisted, for a long time. Then I saw "Smokin'" sitting on top of the "hot titles" rack at the library, and grabbed it, on impulse. Although I brought seven more books home with me, I turned to "Smokin'" first. Read it in an afternoon. And the first few chapters were fun. Like seeing old friends, laughing at the familiar dialogue.
And then it got stupid. Really stupid. Cars burn up. People get shot. People get buried. Pointless characters do pointless things. Stephanie acts like an idiot, repeatedly. The Stephanie-Joe-Ranger love triangle heats up, cools down, heats up.
How much more of this can we take, until the series moves in a new direction? Evanovich has a great, light touch with dialogue and builds Jersey humor into crime fiction. But these characters aren't going anyplace. Ever. We're reading the same book over and over again.