Title: Hard EightAuthor: Janet Evanovich
Length: ~330 pages (Word Nerd can't remember the exact number. It must be the weight of the snow.)
Genre: mystery/chick lit
Plot Basics: Hapless bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is back. As a favor to her parents' next door neighbor, Stephanie agrees to look for a missing woman and her child. But as with most of her cases, she ends up in over her head and with the deadly Eddie Abruzzi and his mask-wearing henchmen on her heels.
Banter Points: Evanovich still has the hook. Word Nerd plowed through this book pretty quickly, even though it's not the best in the series. There were a couple almost laugh-out-loud moments also.
Bummer Points: It had to happen sometime in a series with this many books. Hard Eight is a hard fall from the standards that Evanovich set with the first seven. The book is not terrible by any means, it just felt, well, formulaic at this point. Stephanie has trouble with the case; Stephanie has trouble with the men in her life, cop Joe Morelli and the ever-enigmatic Ranger; there's a romantic interlude; and the case gets solved.
Word Nerd recommendation: If a reader is this far into the series, stick with it. Word Nerd hears that they get better again.
3 comments:
This was definitely a low point in the series. Ten was better because the plot was creative. Eleven was better yet because the plot was completely different. But I don't like any of the most recent ones as much as the first three or so. She has replaced the "completely absurd" and humor of the books with the romantic plotline... and I don't appreciate the switch.
I mean, really. Maybe Ranger is enigmatic and adds an interesting love triangle, but how on earth can that compare with Grandma Mazer pulling fingers off of dead guys, shooting turkeys on the kitchen table, and having dead guys land on your windshield and then stuffing them in your trunk except you can't bend their legs on account of the rigor mortis setting in, so their feet stick out and Grandma Mazer ties a red hankercheif to a toe? The very fact that I remember those scenes shows that they were absolutely hilarious.
Glad to know there are things to look forward too in books 10 and 11. Better get to those other books on the reading list to make way for these.
i think if you are ever feeling down and blue you should pick up Janet Evanovich novel 11 was hysterical that I laughed out loud while reading on the subway. People thought I was crazy.
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