3.8 ⭐ this one was fun and easy to follow, but what an odd ending

This is the first time I have been on Team Ranger, mostly because I like that he accepts her for how she is.

That being said, sometimes Stephanie's inability to learn can get a little tiring.

Perhaps I'm rating this too high, but Janet Evanovich entertains me and makes me laugh-repeatedly-when I desperately need it. With too much violence to be a cozy (someone gets sawed in half and duct taped back together) and not enough relationship drama to be a romance, this series hits the spot for me when the time is right.

Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter in Trenton, NJ, and is not great at her job, but she is persistent and sometimes brave to the point of stupidity (points to Evanovich for keeping me engaged when I would have given up on most characters.) In this outing, she's asked by her parents' neighbor to find her missing granddaughter and ends up tangling with a notorious Trenton gangster. Along the way, she loses four pairs of handcuffs and several cars, leading her insurance company to drop her (what took them so long?) She also finally seems to figure out she shouldn't go into these dangerous situations on the reg without being armed, especially when her jeans are so tight she can't reach her pepper spray and her stun gun doesn't work half the time.

And for those who are invested, which is pretty much everyone who reads this series, Stephanie hooks up with both Morelli and Ranger in this book. Separately, because this isn't Y Tu Mama Tambien.

As always, the star attraction is Evanovich's humor:

Ranger grinned down at me. "You have cuffs, right?"

Ulk. "Actually, no. I'm currently cuffless."

"How are you going to catch the bad guys if you haven't got cuffs?"

"It's a problem."

"I have cuffs," Ranger said, touching his knee to mine.

My hearts was up to about two hundred beats per minute. I wasn't exactly a handcuff-me-to-the-bed kind of person. I was more a turn-out-all-the-lights-and-hope-for-the-best kind of person.

********************

I looked more closely. She was right. Albert Kloughn was in the dryer. He was all scrunched up with his ass to the round porthole glass door, looking like Pooh stuck in the rabbit hole.

"Is he alive?" I asked.

"Yes! Of course he's alive." Valerie crept closer and knocked on the door. "At least, I think he's alive."

"What's he doing in there?"

"The lady in the blue sweater thought she lost her wedding ring in the dryer....."

"Jeez, why didn't you call the fire department or the police?"

There was movement in the drum and a lot of muffled noise coming from Kloughn. The noise sounded like no, no, no.

"I think he's embarrassed," Valerie said. "I mean, how would it look? Suppose somebody took a picture, and it got in the paper? No one would ever hire him, and I'd be out of a job."

"No one hires him now," I said.

********************

"You better get that guy," Vinnie yelled at me. "I'm not going to be happy if I'm out Bender's bond."

"I think there's something going on with Bender," Lula said. "He's one of them lucky drunks. It's like he's got a direct line to God. God protects the weak and the helpless, you know."

"God isn't protecting Bender," Vinnie yelled. "Bender is still out there because I have a couple of useless boobs on my payroll."

"Okay, fine," I said. "We'll go get Bender."

"We?" Lula asked.

"Yeah, you and me."

"Been there, done that," Lula said. "I'm telling you, he's under God's protection. And I'm not sticking my nose into God's business."

"I'll buy you lunch."

"I'll get my bag," Lula said.

And my mother was at the wheel. She ran flat out into the rabbit. The rabbit did a flip off the car in an explosion of fake fur and landed in a crumpled heap at the side of the road. The Darrow driven car slid to a stop beside the rabbit. Darrow and the other rubber masked guy got out, scooped the rabbit up, dumped him into the back seat, and took off.
My mother was stopped a few feet from me. I limped to the car. She popped the lock and I got in. “HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD” my mother said. “You were being chased by Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and a rabbit!”
“Yea,” I said, “good thing you came along when you did.” (Stephanie)
“I RAN OVER THE RABBIT,” she wailed. “I probably killed him!”
“He was a… bad rabbit, he deserved to die.” (Stephanie)
“He looked like the easter bunny; I killed the easter bunny” she sobbed.
I pulled a tissue out of my mother’s purse and handed it to her. Then I looked through the purse more thoroughly. “Do you have any valium in here, any klonopin or Ativan?”
My mother blew her nose and put the car in gear. “Do you have any idea what it’s like for a mother to drive down the street and see her daughter being chased by a rabbit?! I don’t know why you can’t have a normal job like your sister.” I rolled my eyes.
“I’m not sure what I should do next,” my mother said. “Do you think I should report this to the police? What would I say to them? I mean, how would it sound? I was on my way to Joe Vichinis for lunch meat when I saw a rabbit chasing my daughter down the street, so I ran over him but now he’s gone.”
And when Stephanie calls Joe to tell him all this, all he says is “I’m fucking speechless.”

I literally cannot. This right here, that’s all you need to read about in order to dive right into this book. Honestly, if you’re still looking at reviews this far into the series, unsure if they’re for you or not, just know this shit just continues lol. Cars explode, Stephanie can’t decide between Joe and Ranger. Bond apprehensions go awry, people break into Stephanie’s apartment. Grandma Mazur upsets the funeral people. Et cetera. And to me, they’re all glorious and different enough for me to jump right into the next. There is character growth, there are major changes; I don’t mean this to sound like each book is a copy pasta of the previous. Even now, two years after my last reread, I can remember specific things that happened in different books, I look forward to getting to them.

Ottavo appuntamento per Stephanie Plum e per la sua vita movimentata di cacciatrice di taglie. È un vero peccato che sia l'ultimo a essere stato tradotto in italiano (almeno credo), perché non credo che porterò avanti la serie, anche se una dose ogni tanto di Nonna Mazur mi serve. Certo, in questo episodio è un po' in sordina, anche se ci sono nuovi personaggi. Vogliamo parlare dell'avvocato Albert Kloughn? È un personaggio talmente strano che a un certo punto ho pensato si trattasse solo di una facciata, e che collaborasse con Abruzzi, il cattivissimo di turno. Ma la scena con l'asciugatrice è davvero surreale...
Questa volta Stephanie non lavora per denaro, ma per una vicina di casa, la cui nipote è scomparsa portandosi via la figlia, contravvenendo quindi agli accordi di affidamento. L'ex marito la sta cercando, ma non è affatto certo che sia perché tiene alla bambina, quanto piuttosto per qualche fine recondito.
In campo lavorativo, Stephanie cerca di portare alla centrale di polizia Bender, un uomo che trova puntualmente a casa, ma che non riesce mai a bloccare, perdendo il conto del numero di manette perse nel tentativo. In questo caso il finale è davvero esilarante (tranne che per Bender).
E non parliamo delle macchine e dei cellulari che Stephanie distrugge/perde nell'arco di pochissimi giorni. Ma in questo non c'è assolutamente nulla di originale.

I finished this one at about 2:30 in the morning, it's all the previous books fault. I wanted to see if Stephanie paid up on her end of the deal with Ranger, but she doesn't, at the beginning anyways. I should have stopped there, but the potential Ranger goodness sucked me in. And I wasn't disappointed. =D I don't think there's going to be any long term Stephanie-Ranger cause the books seem to always bring her back to boring Morelli, but I'll take what I can get. Ranger's always lurking around with his awesomeness. =)

Lots of good stuff in this book, I enjoyed Stephanie and her cousin Vinnie teaming up to pick up FTAs, they haven't caught one yet, but they are pretty hilarious with Vinnie likely to shoot up places(which might have been a different book, but, again, blurry lines between books for me =) and Stephanie hanging out car windows to shoot at men in bunny costumes.

Speaking of, her mom running over said man in bunny costume, was both funny and terrible, but mostly funny cause this is fiction after all. =)

Finally Ranger kills someone who's after Stephanie! (real life: killing=bad. books: killing=not so bad =) There were a couple other instances in books I was hoping Ranger would show up at opportune times but never did. I had high hopes as the book neared the end and the crazy guy of this book was still at large and Ranger didn't disappoint. And in his awesomeness he made it look like a suicide. Stephanie is already back in Morelli's arms(boo!) by the end, but I'm thinking Stephanie isn't going to look as fondly on Ranger's activities as I did. =D In case it's not obvious by now I'm reading the books 75% for Ranger and 25% to see how Stephanie's car gets destroyed each book. =D

My book reading is going to slow down a tad now, and not just because of Christmas approaching. The first in-betweeen book was not returned to my friend so I'm hoping the library has it before I can dive back into the other ones I do have.

This book was just OK for me. I dont even know whether to give this a one or two stars but going with two just because l do like Janet's writing skills and Lula is a funny character. It wasn’t anything too funny about it so no laughs beyond maybe Stephanie's mom hitting the rabbit while trying to save her. I got tired of Kloughn always helping and just being a pain in the butt to Stephanie and Lula. He’s a lawyer, not a bounty hunter

This series is quite simply a never-ending buffet, well maybe it will end sooner or later, but not soon. Just when you think our gal Stephanie's run of bad luck has come to an end, it starts again. Added to the usual cast of characters in this volume is an attorney named Albert Kloughn pronounced "clown". He gets sucked into the F5 which is Stephanie's life and career. Stephanie is on the lookout for her neighbor's daughter, who doesn't want to be found. Trouble is Stephanie may not be the only one looking for her. I seriously don't think there is a funnier series of books in print. This one is even better than the others. For those reading this that have not read any books in this series, please start reading them. If you have read up to the seventh book and are wondering whether to read this one, it's a no-brainer. 5 stars

This felt copypasted - it was so samey and formulaic. Even within itself, the same jokes keep getting re-used over and over again.

Twist developments were abrupt to the point of feeling eternally contrived. I didn't laugh much at this one, the humor fell flat and felt hollow. This book seemed phoned-in.

"The status quo is god" gets laid on thick. Characters' flaws and unlikeable traits are not going away, Stephanie isn't improving at her job whatsoever (it's a miracle she can pay rent at all), and the love triangle nauseates me.

Grandma Mazur however remains the best character. I love her; she's flawless.

Spoilers:  I seem to be alone in this, but the entire thing with Ranger here made me feel sick.

Why can't they just simply acknowledge mutual attraction and have consensual sex? Why did it have to be coerced out of her as a "debt" due to her incompetence? Why did she have to be manhandled and dragged off to the bedroom despite repeated protests, then instantly abandoned in the morning and left to feel terrible about herself? Why did she by-and-large mostly reference her fear and panic at the thought of being with him, and why was this somehow presented as meaning she wants to do it? What kind of a message is that? Ugh.

That sex scene made passable entertainment into a terrifying flashback to every man who's ever cornered and harassed me. The parking lot masturbation scene didn't even squick me out as much. Ranger is a "Nice Guy" (tm) of the "you owe me sex for being nice to you, and I don't take no for an answer, or else" variety level creep who's only excused for it because everyone thinks he's hot.

If they'd just agreed to have no-strings-attached sex and left it at that, that would be fine, but it was chalked up with these layers and layers of skeeviness that made my skin crawl, and I was honestly sick to my stomach. I skimmed through the rest of the book as fast as possible to get it over with.

I can't say I look forward to reading any more of this series, and I probably won't. From what I've heard in reviews for the rest of the books, it's all downhill from here anyway, so I won't be missing out on much. I should have stopped at 5 or 6 when the series peaked.

4stelle e mezzo per una serie da 5 stelle!!! È l'ottavo libro ed è divertente, esilarante, incalzante come i precedenti. Come non adorare Stephanie con tutti i suoi difetti, le sue imperfezioni e quella dose di autoironia che la rende diversa da tutte queste eroine perfettine dei nostri tempi.....una ragazza della porta accanto anche se come vicina di casa sarebbe pericolosa :-)

don’t you just hate it when your car gets fire bombed by a rabbit

By far my favorite of the series......and all I can say is I am in love with Ranger....