Explosive Eighteen (Stephanie Plum)

I am a Jersey Girl. I so loved this series in the beginning but now it's just same old same old. Nothing ever changes. Stephanie is now casually sleeping with both Morelli and Ranger at the same time which is just icky. The best line in the whole book is when Morelli is reaching for his boxers on

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Stephanie's floor and he asks her if she is sure they are his. Yuck. I want to quit the series but I just keeping giving in and as long as I and a lot of other people do, Janet will keep churning out the same garbage. I never could get into any of Evanovich's other books because they are just like what this series has now degenerated into, utter crap. Stephanie will never pick between Morelli and Ranger, Lulu will always be wearing too tight clothes, Grandma Mazur will still always be going to the funeral parlor, and Stephanie's mom will always be cooking and drinking. I swear that the author spends more time thinking up the food that Stephanies mom cooks than the actual book plot. I hope the movie in January will invigorate Janet to put some of the love and effort back into the series. Stephanie Plum deserves better.

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This was one of the best Stephanie Plum books in awhile, at the end of Smoking Seventeen Stephanie was off to Hawaii this one starts out with her trip home, she mentions she left them both in Hawaii and has a tan line on her bare ring finger that she is unwilling to explain.

I was so glad I listened

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to this on audio because I think if I had the paperbook I would have been tempted to skip ahead to find out just what happened in Hawaii instead of letting the story unfold as it was supposed to.

I am hoping that Stephanie is getting closer to making her choice between Morelli & Ranger and IMHO I hope she chooses Morelli. As usual Grandma & Lulu steal the show at times and I should know better than to be eating or drinking anything while listening/reading these books these two have the best lines!

I just love this series especially on audio; Lorelei King’s narration brings these characters to life for me. And this one is no exception if you want a good laugh and a fun story I highly recommend this series especially on audio!

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The caramel corn of books. By now I'm used to Evanovich's style, her characters, her obligatory rifts. But I still enjoy them all, even while thinking "okay, I've read this book about 17 times before".

More of the same -- but that same can be really funny. We've kind of consigned Stephanie to audiobooks for car trips. If you nod off for a few minutes you can catch right up, and the ridiculous situations are lively enough to keep the driver awake. How can you lose?

After a string of 4 or 5 lackluster books, I feel like Evanovich has managed to breathe at least a little bit of new life into this stale series. Some things haven’t changed – Stephanie’s still not the greatest bounty hunter, has horrible luck with cars, and can’t make up her mind about

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either Morelli OR Ranger. Though after her disastrous Hawaiian vacation, she’s not particularly anxious to be face-to-face with either of them.

Stephanie actually does a fairly good job of fending for herself in this one, fighting off fake FBI agents and apartment intruders with no outside help. Unfortunately, this also meant we didn’t see nearly enough of either guy. And I could do with a little bit less Lula. She’s actually managed to become a caricature of herself, all tight clothes and buckets of chicken.

As for the mystery of what’s in the photo, I found that part of the plot more than a little implausible. It felt like Evanovich was making a jump into technology that she really wasn’t prepared for.

I think it’s going to take a lot to get this series back to where it was at its peak, but this one was entertaining enough to keep me reading until the end. But maybe Stephanie can find some personal growth in the next one?

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Another quirky Stephanie Plum adventure. It had me frustrated at first because I just wanted to know what had happened in Hawaii! Then it had me feeling so sad for Stephanie. She really is a screw-up. She feels terrible about being in love with two guys, but how can she possibly choose between

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them? I think she feels like it's finally time for her to grow up, which makes me think she's leaning toward Morelli. I liked how Morelli seemed to finally be seriously bothered by the whole Ranger situation. I wish Ranger was the same way about Joe. Lula was hilarious as always. I think my favorite part of the book was a scene where Stephanie watches (with The FBI agents) the security tape of her fight with "Razzle Dazzle." Soooo funny and totally awesome! It's stuff like that that makes me LOVE this series!

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I can't say this book had a plot and, if it did, I completely missed it, but I loved it anyway. What it did have was Stephanie and Ranger, Stephanie and Joe, breaking and entering, escaping, Stephanie's Mother's food, Trenton, lots of Lola, explosions, car issues, at least one viewing with Grandma

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Mazur, and that is all I need. Enjoy!

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Average installment of the Stephanie Plum books. Funny in parts but not as much as some others. Seems almost abbreviated. Also Lula is even more of a clown than she is in most of the other books. Not much time spent on the other characters.

When I first started reading this one I thought it was the same enjoyable, funny Stephanie and crew but somewhere around 2/3's of the way through, I lost interest. There was nothing to put me on the edge of my seat and it seemed like the last "mercy illegal capture" was put in just to lengthen the

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book. I don't know. I did like the book to a degree but it went stale too fast.

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To my mind, this is the same story - AGAIN. Evanovich just seems to change the story line a bit. Nothing surprising with the writer or with the story. When I first started reading these books, I couldn't wait until the next one came out. I'll still read her books knowing I don't have to pay for

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them while I can get them from the library. I remember at one time finding cold coffee in upper Michigan for a friend and then finding a Janet Evanovich in the store. I gave it to her and said - A quiet afternoon, a cold coffee, and Janet Evanovich. What could be better? Not so any longer. I'm starting to wonder why Ranger and Morelli aren't tired of her antics. I'm getting there. I think she should get married and drop from sight. A good ending to a good run.

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Continues just to call them in--I miss the fun of the first books--now they're just a cliche.
Same old,same old...

Reviewed by Jen
Review copy provided by audiobook from library
I'll start this off by saying that there are possible spoilers coming...

I've been reading this series for years and I used to devour the books as fast as I could, but these days I wonder why I even bother. In the beginning, I loved the

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freshness of the characters, the situations that Stephanie found herself in and even the love triangle between Morelli, Ranger and Stephanie.

But around book 9 or so, the freshness wore off and I felt I kept getting a rehashing of the same old story. We know there's going to be a car mishap in each story (it's usually an explosion). Stephanie is still inept, won't use her gun, can't seem to manage a tazer, and runs to Ranger for help in capturing her easy skips. Lula continues to get more and more outrageous and is as inept as Stephanie. And then there's Stephanie's inability to choose between Morelli and Ranger and they just seem to accept the fact that she's sleeping with them both and not pushing for a decision.

Here's my problem. I keep coming back to this series expecting more. Expecting growth. And every time, I come away mad that I wasted time on this series because it's not there. At this point, I don't even bother BUYING the books. I rely on the library to support my unsatisfying Stephanie Plum fix. And imagine my disappointment when I got the audio book from the library and it was only 5 discs long. I was able to listen to it in one day at work... and often found myself tuning out because I felt like I'd heard it before.

The only thing preventing this book from getting only 1 star is that I did have a few laugh out loud moments and thought the basic plot was promising. Too bad the execution of it was lackluster and more often than not, I was shaking my head and questions why I was even bothering. Like many other one-time fans, I think it's time that Evanovich either breathes new life into the series by seriously shaking things up or she needs to wrap it up. She'll no longer be making money from me as I refuse to buy these books anymore.

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A very light read. I feel like this book was once again going over and over old ground with way too much rehashing of past books (books 1 to 10 were great). The characters have diminished into boring shadows of their former interesting selves. It's becoming irritating but I still have to keep

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reading them in the hopes that things improve. This series is way past its used by date - finish it already!

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I didn't like the number 17 book very much and I was starting to wish that Evanovich would wrap this up already, but I think that she redeemed herself with this one. OK, so its not the very best in the whole series, but it was still a lot of fun. The only thing that bugged me a little bit was all

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the talking in this story about her trip to Hawaii with Ranger. Where's that book? That's something I'd want to read. Overall, though, I feel like the series needs to close up shop soon. Maybe Evanovich is planning to end the series on an even number 20.

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Yet another fantastically sassy and fun Stephanie Plum novel. What happened in Hawaii? Holy moly. Who is that guy in the picture? Why is the FBI following Steph? Morelli? Ranger? Lula? It's all there and more. Enjoy!

Janet Evanovich has me anticipating the next book yet again. Love this series and

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I'm seriously excited for the movie in a few weeks.

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Possibly more fluffy than most, this edition has Stephanie being chased down by a new pack of weirdos, looking for a photograph that Stephanie's Grandma Mazur put out with the trash. Not quite as much fun as her earlier books, but I still get such a kick out of the reader (Lorelai King), that I'll

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keep getting these audiobooks out of the library for as long as Ms. King keeps performing them.

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Explosive Eighteen- 3 stars
My heart Is breaking
I love love love Janet Evanovich, and it breaks my heart to give a 5 star author a 3 star review, but I just couldn’t do the 5 stars this time, because it just didn’t go anywhere. I was so excited to find out about this Hawaii trip, and one little

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tiny paragraph, WTH? And for the love of God could Stephanie please make up her mind already. Why do they even want her? I’m just not sure that I’ll be able to force myself to buy the next book if it’s only going to be more of this. I mean I have hung through 18 books it is time to put it away.

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Another installment in the day-to-day existence of Stephanie Plum. This book had too much Lula, too many fart jokes, too much gluttony, and too much ineptitude. It's time for Stephanie to mature. Besides the usual skips that she needs help capturing, on a flight home from Hawaii, the man sitting

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next to her slips a photograph into her carryon bag. He's murdered and a bunch of lowlife thugs want it and chase Stephanie around to get it back. Regarding Morelli and Ranger . . . Does Stephanie love these men? It's seems like she's just using them for information, backup help with the skips and booty calls.

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The Stephanie Plum series used to be so much fun to read, but it has been going downhill for quie some time now. I really haven't enjoyed the last four or five books at all. This book is a marginally better read then the previous ones, but it still is tough to get through at times. The book begins

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with Stephanie getting off a plane in New Jersey, on her way back from a disastrous vacation in Hawaii. She finds a strange envelope in her bag with a picture of a man on it. Stephanie doesn't know how she got the picture and she throws it away, and then the mayhem starts. All of a sudden she's got a whole bunch of people after her with guns, knives and other paraphanalia. We have the usual with these books. Cars being stolen, skips getting away and buildings and trailers blowing up. I really don't know why I keep reading these books, but at least I don't buy them. I borrow them from the library, so nothing is really lost, just a bit of time.

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I never get sick of the Stephanie Plum series! I particularly enjoyed this one as it opened with Stephanie on a plane flying back from Hawaii where something happened with Morelli and Ranger, but we don't know what. We're kept in the dark for awhile, but I loved the suspense. I'm constantly torn

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about who I prefer Stephanie with, so not knowing what happened or who she's currently with was delicious torture. The plot followed the same general formula that they all do, with a main mystery and then funny side plots with Stephanie chasing down various criminals, but with all the familiar characters, it's always a fun and entertaining read.

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She can still make me laugh out loud!

Still waiting to be rewarded for slogging through the early 'teen books. I thought it seemed promising at the beginning, with a dead body and mystery photo in Stephanie's possession. However, that just turned into an endless loop of fake FBI, real FBI, fake wives etc asking Stephanie about the

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photo. Grandma got to go a funeral. Lula got chicken. Connie set up another office. Remember when all kinds of book blurbs for other books would hold up Stephanie Plum as the height of comparison for a snarky, plucky heroine? (with a slightly dysfunctional family) There's still other Stephanie Plum type characters out there, and they're all in better stories.

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I don't need to say much about this one. It's typical Stephanie. Since 17 left us hanging, I won't give any details here at all. No spoilers!

I love this series because its so formulaic and it wouldn't be the same if cars didn't get destroyed, Lula didn't wears inappropriate clothes and shoot someone, Grandma Mazur didn't disrupt a funeral and Stephanie wasn't still trying to choose between Morelli and Ranger. Having said of all that, it

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was slightly disappointing because we didn't move past the formula.

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