Fearless Fourteen
by Janet Evanovich
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Book Reviews of Fearless Fourteen
Book Review: Excellent if you can't get enough Plum...
Summary: 5 Stars
Not for people who are tired of the storyline of the bumbling bounty hunter and her penchant for stumbling into trouble
Ok so I understand a lot of people are kind of jaded with the storylines and the characters, but that's what I come back for. I don't understand why people are upset with the characterization of Stephanie and Joseph and Lula.
1.) In every single book it's reiterated that Joe used to REALLY be a Man about Town... I mean even now, just because he's faithful to Stephanie... it's only that he's sheathed his tomcat claws a little, I wouldn't say he was all of a sudden going to be like oh that's my kid... I thought he was totally within character.
2.) Stephanie's character is the fact that she's kind of a bumbling bounty hunter... if she was suddenly good at her job... she wouldn't be Stephanie... In celebration of Fourteen coming out I reread my entire collection from book 1 from about mid-May and I think this book followed nicely... I still can't get enough.
3.) Lula's treatment of Tank is another topic I've seen come up. Lula is just being Lula. That's how she treats everyone. She's funny and kind of a user but we love her because she's Lula.
I think it's one thing to be tired of the books and the way they're sort of formulaic because hello... like most series, written about the same subject by the same author, there tends to be similarities... but it's another to accuse the author of changing the characters... I've just re-read all 13 books and in 14, the characters stay true to themselves.
Even though I bought the book immediately it came out I was re-reading Eleven On Top at the time and reading the reviews, I was so nervous that Morelli would be completely decimated as a character and that I was going to be made to hate him and Lula. So I read the book really cautiously and fully expecting to hate it and with this feeling of apprehension... And I laughed out loud but nervously and really got into it, only to turn the last page and nothing... It was like wait what's everyone talking about? So i re-read it a week later and just finished today and still I love it... I think it's pretty good... It's not my favourite, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Bring on more Plum please!!!!!!!!
Book Review: Feeble Fourteen.
Summary: 3 Stars
I read several of the other reviews and I have to agree with some of the comments.
However, I feel completely disloyal, because I LOVE this series and I look forward to hooking up with Stephanie, Joe and Ranger for a fun adventure. I am relatively new to this series. Last summer a friend told me about it, loaned me "One for the Money" and I was HOOKED! I read all of them as fast as I could get them from the library. And when I was done, I purchased the complete set from Ebay.
So like so many others, I looked forward to 'Fourteen' for months. But I have to say, while I did have 'laugh out loud' moments, I found this one to be weaker, shorter and a little disappointing.
I know Ms. Evanovich is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to choosing who Stephanie will 'hook-up' with in each story. Joe fans are disappointed when she is involved with Ranger and Ranger fans are disappointed when she hooks up with Joe. That is a dilemma. I love both guys so for me I am happy when she is involved with either although there will have to come a time when a choice is made. Ugh! (and I sure don't want to make it...and I'll just have to deal with the choice!)
But in this story, Ranger was almost nonexistent. At the beginning you think he'll be in this one more, but after the initial 'security-duty', he disappears. Some of the attraction of these stories, for me anyway, is the dynamic between Stephanie and these two hunks. Not enough interaction with either.
Lulu is hilarious but after awhile I do get tired of her being so prominent in the stories.
The book seemed too short to me. It was disappointing when I was just a few pages to the end and I saw that the story was going to come to an abrupt end. And what's up with psycho Dom...at the end he went from wanting to kill Joe to sitting in his living room having a friendly meal. All in the course of a few pages. No way would he not react, when Joe showed up to help with Loretta.
While some of the reviewers said they wouldn't buy the next books in hardcover, wait for reviews etc. I will probably still buy it. I am hopeful that Ms. Evanovich gets inspired to really blow us away with Fifteen. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
Book Review: Who wrote this book? Not Janet Evanovich!
Summary: 1 Stars
Janet, where are you? Too busy writing all your other series to pay attention to Stephanie Plum? Have you turned this series over to some lame ghost-writing-by-committee service? Please take a cue from JK Rowling - if you can't write a good book by the projected publication date, then postpone it and keep writing until it IS good. This latest outing in the Plum series is a major disappointment. Evanovich totally phoned it in, if she even wrote it. The disjointed, unresolved plot points seem recycled from bits of the previous 13 books - there is nothing new, fresh or funny in this one (with the exception of the potato gun). And, as above, it seems like it was written by committee. The "mystery" isn't compelling (especially with the villain coming out of nowhere in the last act). The dialogue is lame and the characters don't sound like themselves anymore. What the hell happened to Ranger? Lula? Joe? Stephanie? They are all unrecognizable. Lula has turned into a bridezilla monster (and why? What does it serve?). Ranger has totally lost his cool (and got covered with feathers - so wrong). And Joe - we all know he had a wild past, but to set him up as an unrepentant baby daddy seems silly and makes him into a guy I don't like. Grandma has become a joke (and a bad one). Mom drinking whiskey at the dinner table? What has happened to the rest of the Plums? The "eccentric" guest characters are all undeveloped, uninteresting and unnecessary to the already confusing (and uncompelling) plot. And let's talk about how the margins and spaces are getting bigger and bigger with each successive book - it took 3 hours to read this 310 page book! I normally linger over the great dialogue, inventive characters & situations, but I galloped through this fiasco, hoping to find something good (and recognizable as a Stephanie Plum adventure) here - but no luck. I love this series so much that I have pre-ordered the books the last few years, but, like many newly ex-fans, I will wait for reviews before I buy the next one. This is a big disappointment. I'm devoting more thought to writing this review than I did to reading this anemic book. Don't bother! I only gave it 1 star because you have to.Book Review: I volunteer to take care of Rex
Summary: 2 Stars
When I was young(er) and foolish, I wouldn't even consider buying a used book. Now that I'm acquiring the wisdom of age and the price of food and gas is escalating, virtually all the books I purchase are second-hand. And FEARLESS FOURTEEN is the poster example of why not to waste good money on a new copy.
Reading any newest release in the Stephanie Plum series is like eating at the Golden Arches; you always know what you're going to get. But even McDonald's has been known to make radical changes (like offering politically correct healthful salads - to my mind, Yuk!, but that's just me). Author Janet Evanovich apparently doesn't know the meaning of the word "constructive change" and, in the case of this installment, has even lost the concept of "quality". Granted, she must be under enormous pressure from her publisher to keep churning out the Plum adventures, but it could be argued that she just slopped this one out any old way to meet a deadline. It may be time for JE to move on. I know that I am; WHATEVER FIFTEEN won't make it onto my Wish List, new or used, for any price. Free, maybe.
Here, we have the usual regulars of Stephanie, Ranger, Morelli, Lula and Grandma Mazur supplemented by the this-show-only guest cast of eccentric characters. But it didn't really hit me how absurdly silly this recipe has gotten until Zook and Mooner began blasting people with their home-made potato cannon. Moreover, the ending was absolutely flat. And, as has been mentioned by at least one other reviewer, where did the two amputated toes come from?
Plum's career as an accident-prone nabber of bail skippers and her dysfunctional love life only have appeal against a contrasting backdrop of relative normality, even if it's Trenton, NJ normality. But when the context and supporting props of her adventure become as ridiculously slapstick as Stephanie herself, she gets lost in it.
At one point in FEARLESS FOURTEEN, Stephanie asks Morelli to promise to take care of Rex, her pet hamster, should anything happen to her. Oh, please, put a merciful end to Plum now and I'll volunteer to take care of Rex forever.
Book Review: Can I get my money back?
Summary: 1 Stars
After plunking down some hard earned cash on this year's installment of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, I raced home to read.
What the? Is there a book return policy? What a waste.
If you love Plum for the edgy writing, great wit, fantastic plot, and wonderful characters, forget Fearless Fourteen. Plum has always been more than just a breezy, silly, summer read for me.
I am invested in the lives of these characters. What I got this year is slapstick, unresolved sub plots, villains with no names, subject matter bordering on the distasteful, recycled plots and my favorite characters very out of character. I even recognized things said by one character in past books, now being uttered by a different character in this book. Bizzare.
No sense rehashing the pitiful storyline. What storyline? This book reads like a major hit on all those that I have grown to love. Morelli's character takes a nosedive as a belching, inept detective with a dead body in his basement and he`s more concerned about the concrete floor or playing softball with his cronies. Stephanie is no longer the gutsy, edgy woman that she was in past books but rather either now babysitting some teenager or flouncing around Trenton in some idiotic reality Bounty Hunter fiasco. Grandma Mazur, dressed in Goth - a master gamer? Lula reduced to sneaky tricks and turning into Bridezilla? Tank fainting and babbling? Mrs. Plum downing a glass of whiskey? And where the heck was Ranger? Reduced to a mere side character?
Speaking of unresolved, and there is a lot unresolved.....like, whose toes were they, anyway?
This book reads like a bad episode of the Three Stooges. The World of Plum in the Twilight Zone. Unrecognizable. A bad dream.
I should have saved my money. Waited to borrow the library copy. Or better yet, not have read it at all.
Sadly, I think it is time to say goodbye to Janet Evanovich and Plum.
Gee, I wish I could get my money back on this one. Are you sure there isn't a better return policy on a really bad book?