One For the Money by Janet Evanovich

Synopsis:

Pestered by her close New Jersey family, Stephanie Plum offers to catch high-school crush Joe Morelli, cop turned bail jumper, for her cousin Vinnie's company. She questions "working girls" to find the missing girlfriend of vicious prizefighter Benito Ramirez while Joe secretly watches her back. Ranger mentors her and supplies vehicles when hers explode.

I will start this by saying that I read this book for the first time over ten years ago. I just had it sitting in my closet and never read past this first one, so I thought it was time I reread it and finish the series.

There are some good things and some bad things.

Stephanie Plum is a funny gal. There were some quotes that had me giggling. Her family is also hilarious especially her grandmother.

Stephanie seems determined enough. . . but she seeks out too much help and seems really helpless at times along the way. Now, this is her first stint as a bounty hunter, and like I said, I haven’t read the rest of the series. I am hoping she becomes more independent or she will be the exact opposite of the female protagonists that I love, i.e. Lindsay Boxer.

That said, this book IS entertaining. I remember liking it when I read it the first time, and I did enjoy it when I read through it again. It took me a little longer than I would have liked to get through it. But, such is life, I suppose.

There was a lot of action for the first novel in a series, so I can only imagine that each subsequent novel will bring the same punch.

We shall see.

3.5/5 stars.

Memorable Quotes: “I wondered if nine in the morning was too early to drink beer. Of course in Moscow it would be four in the afternoon. Good enough.”

“I didn’t feel like a professional. I felt like an idiot. Id criticized foreign governments for using chemical warfare, and here I was buying nerve gas from a woman who waxed off all her pubic hair.”

“I really felt like a jerk, because here was Morelli being nice to me, and what I actually wanted to do was hop on over to Bernie’s to buy a blender and get my free daiquiri mix.”

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Maximum Ride: School’s Out – Forever by James Patterson

Synopsis:

In this eagerly awaited follow-up, brave bird-kid Max and her flock are discovered by an FBI agent and forced to go to "school." There is no such thing as an ordinary day as Max deciphers how and when she's supposed to save the world, and she faces her greatest enemy--a clone of herself.

In the second installment to the Maximum Ride series, the flock is still bent on finding their birth parents. They are somewhat successful, but sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for, as it may have an unexpected result.

I was a bit sad thinking that the whole flock wouldn’t be together anymore, but thankfully the bond of the flock is stronger than blood. They all just work too well together to have one of them leave. It may still happen in later books, but I hope that it doesn’t.

Max is still trying to figure out her purpose. She knows she has to save the world, but the prospect of that makes no more sense than it did when she was first presented with that information. The voice in her head is still driving her crazy, and she has to learn how to balance her insanity with trying to manage the flock.

I didn’t know exactly how I felt about Anne while reading this book, but I knew I didn’t completely trust her. I was sort of glad that I figured that out and give in to the front that she was trying to sell. I am glad that Max saw through her as well.

Max is a very strong character, it isn’t exactly a stretch for there to be strong teenage characters in YA novels, but it still takes me by surprise how mature they are sometimes.

For being so out of my genre on many levels, I am really enjoying this series so far. Sometimes it is good to step outside of your comfort zone and read something different.

4/5 stars

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‘B’ Is For Burglar by Sue Grafton

Synopsis:

Finding wealthy Elaine Boldt seems like a quickie case to Kinsey Millhone. The flashy widow was last seen wearing a $12,000 lynx coat, leaving her condo in Santa Teresa for her condo in Boca Raton. But somewhere in between, she vanished. Kinsey's case goes from puzzling to sinister when a house is torched, an apartment is burgled of worthless papers, the lynx coat comes back without Elaine, and her bridge partner is found dead. Soon Kinsey's clues begin to form a capital M—not for missing, but for murder: and plenty of it.

I don’t know if I am just getting worse at guessing twists at the end of novels, or if Sue Grafton is just really good at fooling me. I sort of had the first book figured out but was caught doubting myself. In this installment, I didn’t even guess the ended until it was revealed.

And that was only one part of what I enjoyed about it.

Kinsey Millhone is very quickly turning into one of my favorite protagonists. She is smart, she is funny, and it is just exciting to read books from her POV.

I enjoyed the story and the characters just as I did with the first one. It is nice meeting new characters with each book and having them explained so well. No character seems like a useless space-filler. It is refreshing. . . even those these books are a smidge on the older side.

‘B’ kept me entertained and kept me turning the page. It made me want to dive right into the next book, but unfortunately I was on vacation and did not have it with me.

5/5 stars.

Memorable quotes: “’Don’t ever do sit-ups. That’s my advice. I do a hundred a day and it always hurts.’ She was winded, her cheeks tinted pink from the effort. She was in her late forties, wearing a bright yellow sweat suit, her belly protruding in pregnancy. She looked like a ripe Florida grapefruit.”

“It’s a marvel God doesn’t reach right down and rip my tongue out by the roots for the lies I tell.”

“The thing Ive been worried about for years is how dinosaurs mated, especially those great big spiny ones. Someone told me once they did it in water, which helped support all that weight , but I find it hard to believe dinosaurs were that smart. It didn’t seem likely with those tiny pinched heads. I shook myself back to reality.”

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