Top Secret Twenty-One

This past year, I have read all of Janet Evanovich’s books. I have to say I like her style. There is humor, imagination, great characters and situations, and almost no grammatical errors. Her books are fun to read, and generally leave me feeling good. I consider them like I would a favorite TV show — more episodes along a formulaic line.
This one left me feeling like Stephanie was finally giving Ranger pause to consider her a likely mate. Joe is still in the running if Stephanie’s biological clock should suddenly go off. And grandma and Lula are still hamming up the scenes. Overall, I think this is a pretty satisfying Stephanie Plum episode.

I’m giving this one three stars simply because this story actually managed to hold my interest fairly well. I have hated the last several books, so this one was a marginally pleasant surprise, though it’s not on par with the first 10 to 12 books of the series.

In this story, we actually have something (kind of) going on with Ranger, so he is more of a focus here than he is in most of these books. Still, though, you’ve also got the usual stuff that has gotten so old: Stephanie’s vehicles getting trashed or firebombed, her apartment being firebombed, she gets punched in the face, Grandma Mazur has ridiculous antics, and of course the usual triangle crap between Stephanie, Morelli, and Ranger. The triangle thing just isn’t entertaining anymore. This series has been going on for so long that it’s like the characters are just stuck in a time loop. Nothing new ever develops, and Stephanie has basically become a skank bouncing around between two guys. Furthermore, at this point I’m even wondering what the hell either of those guys really see in her. She’s a thirtysomething, average looking girl with no career, no money, and no prospects, yet she has a career police detective and a mysterious badass panting after her all the time. Really? Why? Both of those guys should have better options.

Fictional timeline or not, the same old things being rehashed over and over again just gets really old. I stopped paying anywhere near full price for these books a long time ago, which is why I’m just up to book 21. I already have the next two or three of these loaded on my Kindle (I got them on the cheap), so I’ll continue with the series. The books are just not worth paying much for after about book 10 or 12. From that point on, everything is on annoying repeat. At regular price, all of these books are WAY overpriced, especially considering that most of them are several years old now.

Can the Stephanie Plum books get any better? Yes, it’s the best book yet. Don’t the antics begin to get stale? No they don’t. This book has so many subplots going on, and this is Stephanie’s most successful book to date on catching FTA’s. Of course, if she didn’t have to buy a new car every book she would be more financially independent. In this book she gets to learn more of Ranger’s past, and Ranger fills one of Grandma Mazur’s bucket list items. And Stephanie gets a look at Morelli’s bucket list, but the list totally involves Stephanie.

I can’t believe it took me this long to finish this book. Gone are the days of waiting with breathe that is baited for the next book, and staying up all night to speed through the book, one belly laugh after another. It took me this long because it bored me to sleep within 10 minutes of picking it up each night.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve LOVED Stephanie, I might have even ordered some Tasty Cakes off Amazon just to see what they were all about, and I might or might not have purchased a $10 SAMPLE of Ranger’s shower gel, hoarding it, allowing only friends that love Stephanie to use it as hand soap……but…..

deep sigh

I don’t even think the same person wrote this whole book. I think Janet zipped off a few scenes and an outline and gave it to some unimaginative intern to fill in the blanks. The antics have gone from outrageously funny, laugh out loud and scare the dogs to downright stupid.

I know how I would save the books:

Stephanie needs to cut both Joe and Ranger loose. Joe needs to get married to a blonde bombshell and Steph needs to loose her mind and rip her jeans just one last time, in the bushes outside the church trying to see in the windows. Ranger needs to become a phantom dream, and she needs to concentrate capturing interesting and outrageous skips, bring back the good supporting character, like Sally Sweet ( who might be a suit now), and Mooner. Grandma is getting on in years, but she’s got plenty of spunk left….

I think you get my drift….

Janet Evanovich’s Twenty-One is once again a fun read. Stephanie Plum is once again in the middle of trying to find and FTA who is just a bit short in stature! She finds him okay and now it seems that she needs to baby sit him. His apartment is nearly destroyed by a rocket! She trys to find one other FTA who’s business partners are being killed one by one! But who is the killer and why? She finds herself along with Ranger heading to Atlantic City to try a find a Ruusian that also wants her and Ranger dead! What in the world is going on? Not only does she end up baby sitting a man that was the business man’s book keeper, but she also has a few puppies dumped in her lap. This is fast moving and funny. Oh, Grandma is in trouble with Stephanie’s boy friend, Morelli, a detective, grandma. You will laught out lound. Rated “R” for sexual and language content. DP. Castro Valley, CA.

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