Karen's Book Nook

I’m cranking out the Stephanie Plum books  by Janet Evanovich and the latest was Lean, Mean Thirteen.

About the book:

New secrets, old flames, and hidden agendas are about to send bounty hunter Stephanie Plum on her most outrageous adventure yet!

MISTAKE #1

Dickie Orr. Stephanie was married to him for about fifteen minutes before she caught him cheating on her with her arch-nemesis Joyce Barnhardt. Another fifteen minutes after that Stephanie filed for divorce, hoping to never see either one of them again.

MISTAKE #2

Doing favors for super bounty hunter Carlos Manoso (a.k.a. Ranger). Ranger needs her to meet with Dickie and find out if he’s doing something shady. Turns out, he is. Turns out, he’s also back to doing Joyce Barnhardt. And it turns out Ranger’s favors always come with a price…

MISTAKE #3   More Here!

My thoughts:  We really get to see a different side of Stephanie and her past in this book. I always wonder where Janet will take her next and in this one, we got to see what came before. Lula is enjoying a bigger role in each book lately which I like.

Rating 3.5/5

As part of the Stephanie Plum challenge, I read Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich.

About the book:

FIRST A STRANGER APPEARS
While chasing down the usual cast of miscreants and weirdos Stephanie discovers that a crazed woman is stalking her.

THEN, THE STRANGER REVEALS HER SECRETS
The woman dresses in black, carries a 9mm GLOCK, has a bad attitude and a mysterious connection to dark and dangerous Carlos Manoso… street name, Ranger.

NEXT, SOMEBODY DIES
The action turns deadly serious, and Stephanie goes from hunting skips to hunting a murderer.

More here!

My thoughts: If you are a Ranger fan, this book is for you. It’s heavy Stephanie/Ranger and as always, it’s a fun, LOL, read. Stephanie’s antics are up to par and Lula is also a star.

Rating 3.5/5

I was totally unplugged for a week so I didn’t listen to any audio books so I finally finished Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich.

About the book: Stephanie Plum is thinking her career as fugitive apprehension agent has run its course. She’s been shot at, spat at, cussed at, fire-bombed, mooned, and attacked by dogs. Time for a change, Stephanie thinks. Time to find the kind of job her mother can tell her friends about without making the sign of the cross. So Stephanie Plum quits. Resigns. No looking back. No changing her mind. She wants something safe and normal. As it turns out, jobs that are safe and normal for most people aren’t necessarily safe and normal for Stephanie Plum. Trouble follows her, and the kind of trouble she had at the bail bonds office can’t compare to the kind of trouble she finds herself facing now. MORE HERE

My thoughts: Although it took me awhile to finish this one it had nothing to do with the story itself. I actually liked this one a lot and got to see a different side of Stephanie and a more in depth view of her family members.  Things are heating up with her two guys and they all seem to be coexisting.. for now, at least. Looking forward to number 12 to see where it takes Stephanie in terms of her employment.

Rating 3.5/5

Counts towards: Library Challenge, 100 Book Challenge, Audio Book Challenge, Stephanie Plum Challenge, Finish that Series Challenge

Continuing in on my Stephanie Plum challenge, Ten Big Ones, by Janet Evanovich was a quick audio filler.

About the book:

She’s accidentally destroyed a dozen cars. She’s a target for every psycho and miscreant this side of the Jersey Turnpike. Her mother’s convinced she’ll end up dead…or worse, without a man. She’s Stephanie Plum and she kicks butt for a living (well, she thought it would sound good to put it that way…)

It begins as an innocent trip to the deli-mart, on a quest for nachos. But Stephanie Plum and her partner, Lula, are clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time. A robbery leads to an explosion, which leads to the destruction of yet another car. It would be just another day in the life of Stephanie Plum…except that she becomes the target of a gang. And the target of an even scarier, more dangerous force that comes to Trenton. With super bounty hunter Ranger acting more mysteriously than ever (and the tension with vice cop Joe Morelli getting hotter), Stephanie finds herself with a decision to make: how to protect herself and where to hide while on the hunt for a killer known as the Junkman. There’s only one safe place, and it has Ranger’s name all over it-if she can find it. And if the Junkman doesn’t find her first. With Lula riding shotgun and Grandma Mazur on the loose, Stephanie Plum is racing against the clock in her most suspenseful novel yet. Ten Big Ones is page-turning entertainment and Janet Evanovich is the best there is.

Between the adventure and the adversity there’s attitude and Stephanie Plum’s got plenty inTEN BIG ONES.

My thoughts:  I always love Stephanie Plum novels and usually find myself listening and laughing out loud at least a few times. I liked this one with more focus on the mysterious Ranger. It was a shortie and was only 3 CDs so it was a perfect filler between some more meaty reads of late. I still prefer Lori Petty as the reader as she was my schema for the character way back in beginning but this one was ok.

Rating 3.5/5

Counts towards: Library Challenge, 100 Book Challenge, Audio Book Challenge, Stephanie Plum Challenge, Finish that Series Challenge

I’ve finally been able to concentrate on a book and finished an easy one, To the Nines by Janet Evanovich. It’s part of the Stephanie Plum Challenge.
About the book: Stephanie Plum’s got rent to pay, people shooting at her, and psychos wanting her dead every day of the week (much to the dismay of her mother, her family, the men in her life, the guy who slices meat at the deli… oh, the list goes on). An ordinary person would cave under the pressure.
But hey, she’s from Jersey. More here.

My thoughts: I really liked this story that took Steph, Lulu and Connie to Vegas and it was a good one to get back into the reading groove with. I always crack up while reading the Stephanie Plum novels and this one was no different. As always, silly and far-fetched but fun.

Rating 3.5/5

Counts towards: Library Challenge, 100 Book Challenge, Audio Book Challenge, Stephanie Plum Challenge, Finish that Series Challenge

My latest quick read and purse book was Go Tweet Yourself: 365 Reasons Why Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other Social Media Networking Sites Suck by Janelle Randazza.

About the book:

My Thoughts:  It’s True!! LOL… I am a Twitter early adopter and belong to most Social Networking sites but everything she said about them is true. I laughed out loud at a lot of the points that she made and she picked up on all of the annoying things about the sites that I find and complain about.  Regardless, I still Tweet and use Facebook daily to keep in touch with my friends.

Rating 5/5

My little “purse book” was Twitter Wit: Brilliance in 140 Character or Less by Nick Douglas.

About the book:

Product Description:

New York Magazine proclaims, “Twitter is the hot web company right now…the Next Big Thing;” the New York Times calls it “one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet;” Time magazine claims “Twitter is on its way to becoming the next killer app;” and Newsweek notes that “Suddenly, it seems as though all the world?s a-twitter.”

Since its creation in March 2006, Twitter has unleashed a torrent of self-expression from its six million members around the world, who send and read each others? “tweets,” messages up to 140 characters in length. Friends use the site to make plans; relatives use it to stay connected; politicians use it to lobby for votes; and humorists use it to perfect their craft. In fact, Twitter users have reinvented the classic medium of the witticism in a site where anyone can be a Dorothy Parker or an Oscar Wilde.

Twitter Wit is the first compilation of Twitter aphorisms, with submissions ranging from quotidian vignettes like “I bet in Sweden the Ikea instructions are in English” to bumper sticker-type quips like “I think the bird of love is the dove. My husband thinks it?s the swallow,” and contributors ranging from celebrities like Shaquille O?Neal, Jimmy Fallon, Penn Jillette, John Cleese, and Steven Fry to regular people with previously unappreciated sharp tongues. Featuring a foreword by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, this authorized anthology of the thousand most most clever and memorable “tweets” relates the diversity of human experience in hilarious bite-sized pieces.

My thoughts: I like little books like this to fill a few minutes here and there and I’m an early Twitter adopter but I just didn’t find many of the tweets all that funny.  Humor is something individualized.  I like the premise of this book, but for me, it just didn’t deliver.

Rating 2/5

Counts towards: Library Challenge, 100 Book Challenge,

Jumping right in to the next Stephanie Plum installment, Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich.

About the book:   Fugitive Apprehension Agent Stephanie Plum has a big problem on her hands: Seven-year-old Annie Soder and her mother, Evelyn, have disappeared.

Evelyn’s estranged husband, Steven, a shady owner of a seedy bar, is not at all happy. During the divorce proceedings, he and Evelyn signed a child custody bond, and Steven is demanding the money guaranteed by the bond to find Annie. The money was secured by a mortgage on Evelyn’s grandmother’s house, and the True Blue Bonds Bail Agency wants to take possession of the house. MORE HERE

My thoughts: I listened to this one while getting things done around the house today. I need to move away from my wish that the reader was Lori Petty and just accept that it isn’t. I did have some LOL moments as I usually do reading this series. Sister Valerie took a bigger role and things heat up with the love triangle.

Rating 3.5/5

Counts towards: Library Challenge, 100 Book Challenge, Audio Book Challenge, Finish that Series Challenge,, Stephanie Plum Challenge

Continuing on my Stephanie Plum series reading, Seven Up, by Janet Evanovich finally came in at the library. It was on hold for quite awhile and as soon as I got it, it moved to the top of my queue.

About the book: Semi-retired mob guy, Eddie DeChooch, is caught trafficking contraband cigarettes through Trenton, New Jersey. When DeChooch fails to show for a court appearance, bond enforcement agent Stephanie Plum is assigned the task of finding DeChooch and dragging his decrepit ass back to jail. Not such an easy job, it turns out, since DeChooch has learned a lot of tricks over the years and isn’t afraid to use his gun. He’s already shot Loretta Ricci and left her for worm food in his shed. He wouldn’t mind shooting Stephanie next. MORE HERE.

My thoughts:  I love the comical Stephanie and my favorite character, Grandma Mazur. This book introduces Steph’s sister Valerie and stoner, Moonie into the mix.  Once again, I was not happy that the “reader” changed.  Of all of them, this one was really off for me, (actually resulting in a lower rating of the book because it was annoying.)  It never sold me as being Stephanie… no Jersey accent and sounding too old. (My favorite was by far Lori Petty.  Next was  Debbie Mazur.)  I just looked ahead and I guess I’ll need to get used to this reader, Lorelei King though,  since she’s reading the remainder of the series.. Either that or just read them via paper book and still hear Lori Petty’s voice in my head.

Rating 3/5

Counts towards: Library Challenge, 100 Book Challenge, Audio Book Challenge, Finish that Series Challenge,, Stephanie Plum Challenge

I finished the final book (so far),  in the Wimpy Kid series,  Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney.

About the book:

Product Description

It’s summer vacation, the weather’s great, and all the kids are having fun outside. So where’s Greg Heffley? Inside his house, playing video games with the shades drawn.

Greg, a self-confessed “indoor person,” is living out his ultimate summer fantasy: no responsibilities and no rules. But Greg’s mom has a different vision for an ideal summer . . . one packed with outdoor activities and “family togetherness.”

Whose vision will win out? Or will a new addition to the Heffley family change everything?

My thoughts: Once again, I LOVE these books. I giggle like a silly kid while reading them. I love all of the characters and the cartoons as well. These books don’t translate well as a read aloud.. you really need to see the pictures with the expressions and situations to really enjoy them.  I wish there was another one out already. I  read this one as a “purse book” and used it as a filler when I had a few spare minutes.

Rating 4.5/5

Counts towards:  100 Book Challenge, Finish that Series