Saturday 21 December 2013

Book Review: Wicked Business by Janet Evanovich

Have you read the Stephanie Plum Books? You know, One for the Money, Two for the Dough, and on and on; I think they're up to nineteen, now.

They're really funny. The first book was so funny, in fact, that I laughed out loud so much in a restaurant that the lady at the next table asked me what I was reading, and I went out and bought all of the books before I headed into camp again. At that time I think they went up to eight. And I read one in the morning and one in the afternoon for the next four days. Laughed my ass off the whole time. Well, not all of my ass--there's still a large chunk of it hanging around today, but I'm sure that you get the idea.

Anyway, let's fast-forward a few years to a couple of years ago. I read Wicked Business, which is the first in the Lizzy and Diesel novels.

Diesel is the mysterious hunk that showed up in a couple in-between-the-numbers Stephanie books, and he's enlisted Lizzy--a girl with witchcraft in her ancestry, and the magical ability to sense magic,or something--to find all of the SALIGIA stones. Apparently they're only going to find one per novel, because they've only found two so far in the two books so far.

Without getting into too much detail because let's face it--K2 will be up any minute now and I don't have a lot of time--I'll just tell you that there is great humour, a lot of whining, a lot of kooky, annoying, evil and endearing characters, a pet (a monkey--and actually, don't tell him that I called him a pet because I think that he's probably some kind of reincarnated pshyco who'd think nothing of jumping out of the pages and wrecking my house. I mean come on--I have two toddlers. I don't need no damn monkey who thinks he's a fucking human (albeit one stuck in the when-is-he-going-to-be-fucking-four-because-three-is-making-the-terrible-twos-look-like-good-behaviour stage of life), thank-you very much! Oh, and a cat, and if they ever make this book into a movie it'll be played by that orange cat that plays the oh-my-god-what-the-fuck-happened-to-your-cat cat in all the movies that have that so-ugly-it's-adorable cat in them), and some magic. And, of course, there's that underlying sexual/romantic tension that's probably going to take nineteen--I mean seven--books to play out.

Anyway, if you've read the Stephanie Plum books, then the above probably sounds pretty familiar. Granted, Rex, the Hamster, is pretty innocuous, but don't forget about Bob the dog's hi-jinx.

Seriously, the whole time I was reading the Wicked books I got so sucked in by the whining girlie-girl who's in a situation that she's completely inept for, that every time someone called her Lizzie instead of Stephanie, I had to check the front of the book for the title. And I'd think, oh yeah. Not an SP book. Right.

Don't get me wrong, the books are still really funny, and I do enjoy reading them, but, and I'm including the SP books here, I don't have the need to rush out and buy the latest one like I used to.

If you haven't read them yet, I will recommend them as a great read, but don't be surprised when you start feeling like you do when your favourite sitcom has lost it's edge--you still watch it because it still makes you laugh, but it might sit around on your PVR for a while before you watch it. Or, in the case of this book, it might sit around on the piano for a bit before it's finished.


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