Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich
I just finished reading Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich. As the name hints, it’s the nineteenth book in the series about Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter in New Jersey.
This book actually felt a little more serious than the others. No less humorous but still, it dealt with some really serious and creepy issues.
Stephanie is busy chasing a man who’s disappeared from the hospital, just after it was found out that he’d embezzled money from the home for the elderly where he worked. The old people weren’t happy so there was no shortage of potential killers. However, it turns out he’s at least the fourth person to disappear without a trace from the same hospital in the past couple of years.
That’s not all, though. Ranger wants Stephanie to be his ‘date’ for a dinner and later on to be matron of honor on a wedding between a former ‘brother-in-arms’ of his and his wife. In other words, Stephanie is to provide additionally security for the bride-to-be.
She’s forced to endure a horrible pink bridesmaid’s dress and on that first dinner she also gets poisoned. A psycho leaves threatening messages everywhere and it seems the psycho is targeting Ranger, his old buddy and their loved ones.
The book is still funny, as I mentioned above, and the creepiness never takes over, but it felt a little different from the other even more lighthearted books in the series.
And I’m still having fun, so I’m going to read the next book. If that too lives up to my expectations, I might continue with the whole series. Fun is important, especially in times like these.
Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich
I just finished Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich and all I can say is that this was just as funny as most of the other books. The book starts out with a ilttle mystery. Stephanie has just returned from Hawaii where she had a little trouble – guy trouble. You don’t know exactly what’s happened until later in the book, but I’ll just say it’s not that surprising when you do find out. Just funny.
A case sort of follows her from Hawaii and from then on Stephanie is tailed by a multitude of real and not so real FBI agents. That too, gets a bit funny.
But those men are not the only ones stalking Stephanie. She has to put up with unwanted company from a number of other people, but that too, of course, leads to funny situations.
Which is basically what this series is all about. There is of course a case and some bounties to collect, but to me this series is all about the humor and it works. It’s about the only thing that can make me laugh these days and I’m really grateful for that.
So, like I usually say, this isn’t primarily a series of books for the mystery or thriller lover but for those who like the idea of a sort of mystery that is really, really funny. Or I guess, for anyone wanting to laugh.
It is quite a bit about sex too, but there’s nothing explicit so I think most people won’t have a problem with it.
Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich
These books are lifesavers. Even now when I’m not in a very good mood, most of these books can still get me in a better mood at least for a time. In fact, this might be one of my very favorites among the Stephanie Plum-mysteries. Actually, as anyone who’s read even one of these books knows, they’re a bit more comedy than mystery. Sure there’s action too, but it’s not the kind of action that has you on the edge of your seat. The reason this is probably one of my favorites is that there is a LOTR connection. I’ll just mention one word HOBBITS!
Other than that, Stephanie’s boss at the bonds office/bounty hunter headquarters, Vinnie the pervert, has been abducted, but that turns out to be just the beginning of everyone’s troubles.
Also, Stephanie has inherited a supposedly lucky red glass bottle, so that gets taken along on all assignments for a while. That’s not all there is to the bottle either but you only find that out at the very end.
Stink bombs also play a part in this book.
As most of the other books in the series, this one is full of fun, sex and action. I don’t think I’ll need to go into more about the plot because as you might know, plot is the least part of these books. Sure, it works fine, there’s nothing to complain about when it comes to the plot, but there’s so much more to the series than that.
If you need cheering up read one book or more in this series. In fact, even if you don’t, you’ll probably enjoy it anyway. I might not want to continue reading this series forever, but so far I haven’t found any reason to stop, so I’m going to read the next couple of books as well, at least.
The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
I always intended to review these two books (I’ll do them together, since it’s series), but I had a feeling I hadn’t done it yet and I was right.
So, here goes.
I love this series of books, even though I have only read the first two books so far. Hopefully, I’ll soon be able to read more.
This ‘universe’ is absolutely wonderful. I’ll just mention a few fantastic aspects of it:
Literature, books and authors are taken very seriously. There are gangs that clash because they favour two different authors, like football hooligans. The police has a special department (a huge one) that deals with literary fraud. Classic theatre is also huge – they have fan plays, played by fans who love the play and the shows run for years on end.
There’s time travel and the plots deal with time paradoxes.
Some lucky people can enter a book (the plot, not merely the physical copy) and visit or live out their lives in between the major plot points.
However, there are few things that I don’t love quite as much. For instance, there are vampires and werewolves. Not my thing at all.
The main character, Tuesday Next, is – well, to be honest, before I really got into the book, I automatically assumed she was a guy. She doesn’t come across as a female character.
Not that any of this takes away from the enjoyment of the books.
Some people find it hard to classify exactly what genre these books belong to. To some it seems to be a weird sort of mystery, others see it as fantasy or science fiction. I was a bit concerned about the style – in some cases, where books are very hyped and seem to belong to a special or different sort of genre, I have actually hated the writing – such as the Lemony Snicket series. But this, really works. Even though there’s a sort of literary or fandom-related reference in almost every sentence, it never bothers the flow of the plot. If I get it (I don’t get all of them, I think) I love them. But the plot still moves at a fast pace.
My advice is that if you think you might enjoy this type of book, try to read an excerpt on Amazon or wherever you usually buy your books. If you like the first chapter, you’ll love the rest of it too. I imagine that most book lovers would, but it’s actually quite hard to tell. Since I joined the specific book sites online, I’ve come across many people who love books as much as I do, but still love completely different genres or writing styles, so apparently there’s a huge difference between one book lover and another.
In any case, I love these books, so if you have liked my other reviews, you might enjoy this series too, that’s my best guess.
Finger-Lickin’ Fifteen by Stephanie Plum
It’s been a while now since I finished Finger-Lickin Fifteen by Janet Evanovich and I thought I’d post some impressions.
I’ll start out with the blurb:
New Jersey bail-bonds office worker Lula is a witness to celebrity chef, Stanley Chipotle, losing his head, literally. Now Lula and Stephanie Plum, a bond enforcement officer, are on the hunt to identify the killers before Lula is next on the chopping block. Meantime, security expert Carlos Manoso, aka Ranger, has recruited Stephanie for a top secret mission. Someone on the inside at Rangeman is leaking client information, determined to bring the company down. Can Stephanie hunt down a killer, a traitor, and keep her Grandma out of the sauce?
Most of these books are extremely funny and distracting. This one was no exception. It may not be one of the best in the Stephanie Plum series, but it was at least good enough to keep my thoughts occupied while I read it.
I’ve had a bit of bad luck with these books lately. Twice I’ve made a mistake and bought the same book over again. Twice also, I’ve found that a book I’ve bought wasn’t quite as funny as most of the others. Still, no harm done, at least in the latter case. Like I said, they’re at least funny enough.
As far as the plot is concerned, they’re all quite similar, and they’re more humor than mystery, but that’s ok. I really enjoy reading this series and I’m glad I’ll be able to keep reading it for a while more.
If this sounds appealing, then I can really recommend this series.
Penelope, a Madcap Regency Romance, by Anya Wylde
When I downloaded this book, it was temporarily available for free. It’s not that expensive even now. And it’s hilarious.
At the beginning of the book, Penelope comes to London to stay with a dowager duchess, her excentric father, her only a little less excentric (but extremely handsome) son and fun-loving daughter. Penelope lost her mother at birth and was raised, reluctantly by a mean stepmother. When she arrives she has her maid and her faithful pet goat in tow. The dowager duchess, who was a close friend of Penelope’s late mother, has promised to look after her friend’s daughter but feels she’s neglected this duty and invites Penelope to stay for her first season (of balls and dinner parties).
It’s not going to be as easy as it sounds, because Penelope is the most awkward and accident-prone girl in England. The duchess has to ask the help of the mysterious Madame, who has hllarious secrets to hide, and an endless knowledge of how to catch a husband.
I won’t say much about the plot because it’s nearly all just a lot of fun. This is probably the funniest book I’ve read since the Stephanie Plum ‘mysteries’ by Janet Evanovich. I can recommend both Penelope and Stephanie Plum to everyone who needs a good laugh (or two, or three…).
Female role models in tv, movies and books
I recently read an article about positive female role models in movies. In general, there is a lack of good female role models so I think the short list in the article is a good starting point in changing that. I began to wonder which female characters I would deem positive and came up with this list (some of which were in the original article):
Ellen Ripley/Sigourney Weaver, the Alien movies (especially the first and second)
I read that Ripley was originally meant to be a male character, which figures. What man would write a female character like Ripley? Or anyone? Which is too bad, because I think that any woman who was physically capable would have done exactly the same things Ripley did. All she did was save her own life and those her adopted kid/s and try to pay a corrupt corporation back for killing her crewmates and setting them all up to bring back a lethal weapon in the form of an ‘exo lifeform’.
Erin Brockovich/Julia Roberts in the movie by the same name
Erin Brockovich is an unedcuated rather simple woman who stumbles across corruption and finds that she wants to do something about and then does exactly that. Simple enough, but at least when I watched the movie, I was impressed with her development from someone who just wanted to make a living to someone with a conscience. Normally, I don’t like Julia Roberts, so I was surprised to find that I liked this movie and the main character.
Olive Hoover/Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
Olive is anything but a cliche. You might say that her grandfather is not really the kind of person who should have been helping her create her act for the Little Miss Sunshine pageant, and you’d think someone would have thought of that before the actual pageant, but I guess then there wouldn’t have been much of a movie. In any case, Olive is an amazing kid and several other characters in the movie are quite unusual and interesting too.
Catherine Morland, Northanger Abbey
Catherine is adventurous, imaginative and though I understand she’s supposed to be a parody of the typical heroine of a ‘gothic’ novel, I really like her. She’s fun and human and flawed, but in general, just nice and you find yourself rooting for her throughout the novel.
Anne Elliot, Persuasion
Anne is also quite different from the other Jane Austen heroines, which is probably why she and Catherine are my two favorite characters from Jane Austen’s books. Poor Anne has been rather too obedient to her family and that has left her in the unenviable situation of being unmarried at the old age of 26. She spends her life trying to help her family and keeping them from bankruptcy. Then when she gets a second chance at life, she’s strong enough to go against her snobbish family and do what she wants for a change.
Beatrice Eliott/Stella Gonet, The House of Eliott
In the first episode of the House of Elliot, Beatrice and her sister Evangeline are basically slaves to their selfish father, but when he dies – which he does during the first five minutes or so of the first episode – Beatrice is the one who quickly finds a way for the sisters to support themselves, doing something they’re both good at and enjoy doing. Beatrice is fun, tough and the sort of person you really root for, except when she’s mean to Jack.
Trudy Joplin/Olivia Brown, Miami Vice
Trudy is the most fun member of the Miami Vice team. Crockett and Tubbs may be sizzling hot, but Trudy is fun, tough and cool. I love her outfits (when she’s not playing prostitute in sting operations).
The rest of my list:
Constance Peterson, Spellbound
Alicia Huberman, Notorious
Tracy Turnblad, Hairspray
Jane Eyre, in the movie by the same name.
Alice, Alice in Wonderland
Miss Froy, Alice Henderson, The Lady Vanishes
Eowyn, LOTR
Stephanie Plum, Lula, Grandma Mazur/mormor Mazur, One for the Money
Veronica Mars, Cindy “Mac” McKenzie, Veronica Mars
From Downton Abbey:
Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham
Lady Sybil Crawley
Lucy Pevensie, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe + Prince Caspian + Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Morgan, Cutthroat Island
Janet, Charmed Lives, Diana Wynne Jones
Tea with Mussolini: Most of the female characters.
As you can see this is a mix of characters from movies, tv series and books. They’re in no particular order, chronological or otherwise. I just put them in as I thought of them. Some are from the early 19th century, others from this year or last year and the rest from anything in between. Considering how long a period of time this is (nearly two hundred years) you could say that it’s a pitifully short list, but of course I’ve probably overlooked several great characters that I might have come up with if I’d taken more time to consider. Also, it’s just characters from the English-speaking world. Anyway, for what it’s worth, this is my list. Do you have one too?
Interstate 60
Here’s the next movie in my series of comments/reviews on movies and tv series I’ve seen recently. I’d never heard of Interstate 60 until a friend recommended it to me.
It’s about a guy who’s got a birthday coming up. He happens to run into a creature who’s a real, genuine trickster – one of the few all American creatures who grant wishes. Not a genie, a human-type guy who calls himself O W Grant (One Wish Grant).
Just like all tricksters, Grant is unreliable. His wishes are often tainted and contains a trap. Many who have had a wish granted get killed or are tricked one way or another. A man that we get to see, gets run over by a car, immediately after having his thoughtless wish granted. Another one wanted to eat as much as he wanted, but hadn’t taken into consideration that he’d be constantly hungry and that it would get incredibly expensive.
The main character of the movie, Neal Oliver, wants an answer to what he’s going to do with his life. For once, this makes O W Grant take an interest, so he sends the guy off on a long trip through an America he doesn’t really know. You might say it’s an alternate universe.
Here Neal finds a town where drugs are legal – at least one – and it turns everyone into zombies who live for dancing in clubs and during the day they walk around like robots, sweeping floors or emptying garbage cans around the town. One difference between this town and the real world is that kids become adults at 16. A desperate mother hitches a ride with Neal to get her 16-year-old son back, but when she realizes she can’t, against his will, she uses the drug too and after that she’s happy again, but her mind’s a blank.
You also get to see a girl who has become obsessed with finding the perfect sex. She tries to get Neal first, but when he realizes that he’s only going to be a number in her notebook, he refuses, and claims that he’ll be the one she remembers because she couldn’t get him.
That makes her have a go at seducing Grant, but gets a nasty shock.. I won’t go into exactly what that is. The movie is full of crazy, drastic jokes, but there’s an underlying theme.
When Neal wakes up – because he seems to have dreamt it all, yet not – he has his answer. He knows what to do with his life. (Lucky guy!).
The movie is quite fragmented, but it’s all connected somehow, and besides, most of it’s fun and interesting. I can really recommend this movie, though I don’t know for sure that you’ll all like it as much as I did. At least try it and see what you think.
The Amazing Mrs Pritchard
British tv series are usually very good. Even some comedies can be good, though there’s no guarantee. Some are very strange, looking at them from a Swedish point of view. One that I appreciated a lot while it was still on, was The Vicar of Dibley. It’s about a female vicar in a horrid little village in England. The vicar is played by hysterically funny Dawn French.
That was quite a few years ago, but more recently, there was another, newer series – The Amazing Mrs Pritchard. Here’s another incredibly funny woman. The main character is played by Jane Horrocks who’s been in several other sitcoms. In this one, she plays the manager of a shop, who by accident gets into politics and ends up suddenly becoming the Prime Minister of Britain.
It’s really hard to keep from laughing, but it’s not only a comedy. I think the writers have been able to get in a couple of digs against the political system and all stupid old customs in it.
Unfortunately for Mrs Pritchard, she hadn’t quite realized how thoroughly a politician, and worst of all, her family, get vetted. Her husband has a skeleton in the closet and her eldest daughter screws up too. Among other things, she poses in the nude, which gets blown up out of proportion, literally. One morning there’s a giant image of her projected against the House of Parliament.
Her dad has made a bigger mistake, and unfortunately, he can’t stop himself from telling his daughter, who ends up telling her mother, and that’s the end of a brief success story. Mr Pritchard is played by Steven Mackintosh, who’s been in several tv-series and movies. A very good actor. The girl who plays the youngest daughter is very funny. The older one is pretty funny too, but I can’t help thinking she was picked mainly because of her looks.
Several minor roles are interesting too. You get to see many familiar faces. Mostly women, but there’s also a really cute young man, who has an affair with a considerably older woman.
In any case, this is a short series of few episodes, that most people should be able to follow.
