FiftyFiftyMe: Takedown Twenty (Book #2)

i've stopped buying stephanie plum books. sure, i still read them, but now i wait for weeks and weeks to get them from the library instead of shelling out good money for crap fiction.

this one was pretty not good.

first, the beginning chapters read like a warped version of the babysitter club series where stephanie introduced us to each and every person in her life as if we hadn't been there with her for the last 19 installments.

this is lulu. lulu dressed like a ho. but lulu ain't no ho. except lulu is considering become a ho again so she can get an expensive purse.

to each their own, i guess.

i don't recall evanovich ever just listing her exposition in a fucked-up little litany of who is who before. but maybe i just usually skim those parts more.

it has been awhile since i've read one of these.

if i were grading this novel, in the margins, i'd have written "show, don't tell!" about 24249 times, so, maybe the introductions were the least of her problems.

i recently wrote a review about comedy in literature being written like it's amped up to eleven. if that's the case generally speaking, here, it's amped up to at least thirteen. stephanie is, perhaps, even klutzier than usual - maybe because of bella putting the "eye" on her - or maybe because she's getting a little too old to be traipsing around trenton, getting shot at and blowing up cars that don't belong to her.

of course, the mystery here is so phoned in as to be ridiculous. i'm sorry, but if you don't figure out the calling card way in advance of stephanie and joe, you deserve to read the rest of these. the giraffe was a surreal little touch, but, of course, most of us are still reading these for the morelli-ranger-plum triangle.

for an almost engaged woman, stephanie sure kisses ranger an awful lot.

also, isn't it about time that she and morelli take another break so us rangerphanies can get ours a little?

thanks ever so much.

not that i'm anticipating hurrying to read the next installment. these are going the way of the sookie stackhouse books, only with no hint to an end in sight. which is a pity, because when evanovich is on, she's on! it's just not really happening here for me.

2 stars - a few laughs, a quick read, but some awful exposition and hyperbolic comedy.