Game On
By Janet Evanovich
Release Date: November 2, 2021
Audiobook Available from WV Reads
4 Stars! - I personally think Evanovich finally got her groove back with this Plum novel. Stephanie's chasing fugitives again and not zombies, zoo animals, or treasure hunters. And it was refreshing. All the favorite characters come back of course, but the pacing and the plot was a huge improvement. Try it as a throwback read or newcomer to the series.
I've had low expectations for this series for quite awhile but the last few entries started to renew my hope. Finally, Stephanie is back to her old self, and therefore, so are her quirky friends and family. It's like the stars were back in alignment (though Lula would disagreed with me). Stephanie's day starts with a donut at the office. She and Lula catch a few goofy and/or misguided criminals. She's gotta try to one up Diesel this time, and they have a pretty great and sick main villian to chase. This wasn't perfect Plum craziness but it was so close to the classic days.
Somewhere after/around Smokin' 17, most of the Plum fans got a bit fed up. Stephanie was spinning her wheels (when they weren't getting blown up) and instead of giving her just a bit of growing pains, we got this weird dissatisfied Stephanie. She made worse decisions than usual, let the spotlight shine more on Lula and Grandma Mazur, and just generally whined and moaned about the same old problems. But I'm glad I stuck with her. Things picked up around 26 and Fortune & Glory showed signs of promise. We still get all the inside jokes here, they just aren't blown out of proportion. Stephanie actually has a chance to have a beer with Morelli at the end of the day a few times. I think Ranger fans will be a touch disappointed because it takes him awhile to work into the plot, but I don't think any die-hard readers can deny there was finally real progress here. We never needed the series to up the craziness or get a complete revamp. We just needed to return to what made it great in the first place and a few plausible reasons to keep it going.
(NS)
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