There's a monkey, a one-eyed cat, two guys with special powers, and a girl who bakes cupcakes.

Wicked Appetite

By Janet Evanovich

  I told you I was going to read some Janet Evanovich after finishing the House of Night series.  And true to my word, the moment I finished typing the previous post, I went straight to my nook and picked up where I left off with Wicked Appetite.  And it did not disappoint.  I can always count on Evanovich it seems. 

I already told you how much I love the Stephanie Plum Numbers series.  Adore Them!  But I wasn’t sure how I would find Wicked Appetite.  It was certainly a possibility that it would fall flat after the glory of Ranger & Morelli found in the Numbers.  Plus, according to the summary, Wicked Appetite had a mystical/magic element to it, and I’m really not into sci-fi/fantasy (B/c it’s too confusing and those conventions look scary).  So I actually held onto Wicked Appetite for awhile before starting it, afraid I would be disappointed.  But I wasn’t!  Yay! From 10 pages in the story grabbed me.  Yes, there’s some magic-but it’s not confusing, and the parts that are, the main characters are confused right along with you, giving J.E. a chance to explain herself. 

The story centers on a young woman named Lizzy who works at a bakery in Salem.  Lizzy makes the best cupcakes ever – Tangent: Why does Janet Evanovich want me to be fat?? Everything she writes makes me want to eat something sweet! If it’s not doughnuts then its cupcakes!  Ok, tangent over, but I really do want a cupcake…. So Lizzy is a chill ordinary girl who somehow gets caught up in a search for something mystical.  There’s of course a bad guy, Wulf, and a good guy, Diesel – both of whom are searching for a stone, the Gluttony stone.  Turns out there’s a stone for each of the seven deadly sins (which means at least 6 more books!!), and if a bad guy has all the stones, he can probably do bad things.  Anyway, Diesel and Lizzy pair up to search for the stone. 

The funniest parts, for me, are when Lizzy inadvertently picks up Gluttonous behavior.  I’m not saying anymore than that so you can experience the awesomeness for yourself- and you should experience it. But don’t start it right before you have to be somewhere, if you’re like me, you’ll devour it in a day.  It made me laugh out loud and chased away any icky book demons that were hiding in the caverns of my brain.  Run, don’t walk, to your local library and Read. This. Book.  

*I’ve read a bunch of online reviews panning this book because it was so much like the Plum series.  Apparently a bunch of readers found it unoriginal. Perhaps I’m in the minority or perhaps Amazon is full of grouchy pants, either way, I like it and still think you should read it.  It’s Fun and Fluffy, like a kitten playing monopoly.

Literary Crack

I've finished all 8 of the House of Night books (Marked, Betrayed, Chosen, Untamed, Hunted, Tempted, Burned, Awakened) by mother daughter duo P.C and Kristin Cast.
After reading all 8 (#9 is I believe set to be released in the fall), I'm more than a little undecided on my feelings for this series (yes, there are degrees to Undecided-ness just as there are degrees of wrong-ness as anyone who watches Big Bang Theory knows).
So here in a simplified Pro-Con list are my thoughts:

Cons: 

• My least favorite thing about this series is the fact that 8 books in, its the same story.  Normally in a series, I expect each book to have some type of conclusion to the story line.  Maybe there is an over-arching villain that we build up to, but each book addresses a smaller villain or problem and solves or addresses it.  That does NOT happen in this series.  The same bad guys exist from book one through book 8.  Just Kill the Bad Guy Already!  I'm begging you.  Kill him off and create another freaky threat to the world. 
• Going along with that point- You can't read just one of these books.  They suck you in, and then end with a cliff hanger.  I was always hoping that maybe in the next book there were would be some kind of resolution instead of a constant climax.  I knew it was futile. Its like wishing for Manolo Blahniks to go on clearance or finding a pair of jeans that fit on the first try.  Not. Gonna. Happen.  Maybe you can get through the first couple of books with out getting hooked- maybe.  But after the 3rd or 4th, you're doomed. 
• I mentioned this in my starter post, but it totally bugs me that these books are written for Teens and yet there is Graphic adult material (s-e-x).  I'm a bit of a priss, but I'm going to go ahead and say it- there's a Blow Job about 30 pages into the first book.  Phew, can't believe I just typed that...my mom might read this...geez.  Anyway, maybe its just that I grew up in a different time, but it wasn't that long ago that I was a teenager, we're not talking about Happy Days here, more like Home Improvement.  Although, in the interest of full disclosure, I was the kid more likely to be found reading for fun and hanging out with my fellow band nerds, so maybe stuff was more 90210 than I thought it was.  I'm sure a 16 or 17 year old would read nothing that they didn't already know.  But I always read above my grade level, so my concern is more for the 13year old picking this up.  Bottom line, read the series (the complete series) before giving it to a teenager.  Unless of course you already allow that teenager to watch Gossip Girl, in which case, the ship has already sailed. 

Pros:

• I think I already made this point as well, but the Cast duo does an exceptional job of making the books sound authentic.  By that I mean, the teenagers sound like teenagers.  As opposed to adults in teenagers bodies.  Judging from the acknowledgments, this was primarily Kristen cast's contribution to the book, and she did an extraordinary job, Glee references and all. 
• The books read Fast.  This is a good thing since you're going to need to read one after the other in rapid succession thanks to the cliffhangers.
• The stories are exciting and the characters are well developed.  That's a very short and small bullet point, but I don't have anything to add to it.

All in All, I think my friend Lisa said it best when she said the books are good, but emotionally draining.  I'm rather exhausted just typing this.  I don't think I'll be continuing with the series when the next book comes out. And now I need to go cleanse my pallet with some Literary Oreos (that would be Janet Evanovich).

Just Started

I just started Jane Evanovich's Wicked Appetite.  I'm only 55 pages in, but I am Very Excited about this one.  I adore the Stephanie Plum series, and this feels like it will be similar, but with a bit of Mysticism thrown in.  Similar to the Plum 'in-between the numbers'.  So far there's a girl who bakes stellar cupcakes, a hot guy, a bad guy, and several delightfully funny side characters.  High High Hopes my friends.

Starting: Marked

I took a break from Keith Richards to start a new book (well actually I took a break, read to romance novels and then started the new series).  I'm reading the first in the House of Night series: Marked.  Both my mom and one of my best friends recommend the series to me, so it's about time I got around to reading it.  The series is classed as teen fiction, HOWEVER (notice how I used caps, that's to get you to pay attention) if you are thinking of handing this book to anyone under the age of 17 I urge you to read it first.  Really, you should do that anyway, but consider it a requirement with this series.  Within the first 50 pages there's a rather adult scene in a hallway.  If you've just gone back to the start of this post to clarify that I did in fact admit to reading two romance novels prior to this, yes, I'm aware of the irony.  Regardless, that's enough of the public service announcement.
My current feelings about Marked fall in the Cautiously Optimistic range.  The friend who recommended the series compared it to the Gallagher Girls series (One of My FAVORITES) and I can see where she's coming from.  I'm not sure I'll like it as much as the GGs, but I'm just starting out.  So far, I'm entrenched in the character development phase.  One thing I do Love about the book is that its written by a Mother and Daughter.  I find that Cute with a capitol C.  In the acknowledgments at the beginning of the book P.C. Cast (mother) thanks Kristin Cast (daughter) for ensuring that the characters really sounded like teenagers, which they very much do. 
So that's my thoughts for now!  Off to read some more

Starting: Life by Keith Richards

This isn't so much a review, more of a note I suppose.  I'm just beginning Keith Richards autobiography Life.  I'm not a Stones fan, so I didn't really know what to expect.  I heard a positive review on NPR, so I have high expectations going in.  At a little less than 100pages in to this 500+ page tome and I'm happy to report that I have not been disapointed.  Which is lovely, especially because the last rock&roll biography I read, Cherie Currie's Neon Angel, was so horrifyingly awful it gave me the shakes.  Seriously, do not read that book.  Her writing style wasn't so bad, but the content was all drugs and horrific violence-Not pleasant.  Icky Icky Ick... now I'm remembering Neon Angel.. pardon me while I go shower and attempt to disinfect my brain.
So..... Keith Richards really has to make up for the Neon disaster. Or else, be the last musician autobiography I ever read.  As I said, I am, so far, pleasantly surprised.  Richards can be very poetic when discussing music, especially his first introductions to the Blues.  He gives credit where credit is due with paragraphs on the greatness of Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Muddy Waters, and what they meant to him.
   'The silence is your canvas, that's your frame, that's what you work on; don't try and deafen it out.  That's
    what "Heartbreak Hotel" did to me.  It was the first time I'd heard something so stark.'
My only complaint (and its not even a real complaint) is that at times I feel I need a British to American dictionary to figure out what the hell Richards is saying.  For example, at one point he says that two of his aunts were living together and his mother said, in a whisper, that they were 'on the game'.  On the game?  I have no idea what that means... could be anything!  Oh, What do you know, thanks to the wonders of the internet, I just found a dictionary of British slang here.  Apparently 'On the Game' = Prostitution.  I'm going to have to bookmark that page for future inquiries, incase I need to decode Life a little more.  

Just because he's fictional doesn't mean he doesn't love me.

There's a line in a television show that I like (Sports Night) where one of the characters describes what she does when she's at a hotel, out of town, and feeling a little lost/homesick.  She orders a Shrimp Cocktail off the room service menu.  The reason being, shrimp cocktail always tastes the same, it's always good, it's a constant. 
Well, I'm not in a hotel, but I did just move half way around the world.  In addition to some epic packing, I had 24 hours of travel to prepare for.  Luckily, my sweet of a husband gave me an E-reader for our anniversary (a Nook- and yes, I love it).  So, I wasn't faced with deciding what books to carry with me, just what to read.  I knew I didn't want non-fiction (my brain automatically dulls on a plane), I needed some good chick lit.  So I turned to a favorite series:  Stephanie Plum. 
 I first started the series by Janet Evanovich several years ago, but stopped after the first couple of books.  Then I picked them up again about a year ago.  I seriously could not stop reading.  I flew through all 16 (#17 comes out this summer!) in a matter of weeks.  The series follows Stephanie Plum, a regular girl from New Jersey, who takes an irregular job.  She becomes a bounty hunter.  Ms. Plum does not have any particular skills to make this a logical career move, but she's hard up for money and has dirt on the owner of the Bond business, who happens to be her cousin.  Hi-jinks ensue.
  You might think that 16 books about a bounty hunter in Jersey might get old, but it really doesn't. 
So here then, my book loving friends, is a brief list of reasons why I love Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series:
1.  She's Plucky.  That's not a word you hear much in this modern world, but I think its an apt description.  Stephanie Plum (by her own word) has more luck than skill when it comes down to hunting fugitives.  But she doesn't give up.  Each book/story-line/adventure feels new and fresh mostly because Plum has a new way to solve the mystery/get the bad guy. She's assisted by a rather absurd cast or supporting characters.  There's Lula the former ho turned file clerk with a fondness for spandex, Grandma Mazur who always carries a gun with her and things visitations at the funeral home are social events, Stephanie's long-suffering Mother who just wishes she had a normal daughter...and then there are the men... 

2.  The Men.  Oh my goodness.  Stephanie has two men in her life: her on-again-off-again police officer boyfriend Morelli, and her Mentor/co-worker/friend/friend with benefits  Ranger.  In  my personal opinion, Morelli is the guy Stephanie is supposed to end up with... eventually.   They've known each other for ever, and admit that they love each other, but aren't quite ready to settle down.  But I think in 30 years you'll find the two of them married and living in the Burg (the part of Trenton both are from).  Which is fine, because that leaves Ranger for me.  Ranger is a mystery.  He wears all black, might be a superhero, is seriously scary, and has a seemingly endless supply of fancy black cars.  Ranger is hot stuff.  When my sister and I play the 'would you rather' game, Ranger always wins.  Except for sometimes when it comes down to Ranger vs. Carl Kasell.  Then my sis is torn.  But not me.  Give me a t-shirt that proclaims I heart Ranger and I'll gladly wear it. 

3.  The philosophy.  Freud Schmeud.  Janet Evanovich/Stephanie Plum have some of the best pieces of wisdom I have ever come across.  Gems such as The more insecure you feel, the more mascara you should wear.  So true.  And my personal favorite and sometimes Mantra:  Have a Mental doughnut.  Go ahead and take a second to digest the wisdom I'm dropping here.   Have. A. Mental. Doughnut.   Tell me that doesn't rock your world.