Tag Archives: humorous

Wicked Appetite

Book Review of Wicked Appetite (Lizzy & Diesel #1), by Janet Evanovich

I borrowed an audio copy of Janet Evanovich‘s Wicked Appetite from the library.

Description from Goodreads:

For centuries, treasure hunters have been eager to possess the stones, undeterred by their corrupting nature. The list is long — Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, to name a few. Now the Stones have found their way to Salem, Massachusetts, and so has Gerwulf Grimoire, adding himself to this rogues’ gallery of power seekers. He’s an uncommonly dangerous man, with a hunger for the forbidden, and a set of abilities that are way beyond ordinary. Abilities that he feels entitle him to possess anything he might desire.

That would include Elizabeth Tucker, the woman he needs to find the Stones. She’s freshly transplanted from New York City to Boston’s North Shore. With a new job as pastry chef at Dazzle’s bakery and an old house inherited from her Aunt Ophelia, her life is pretty much on track …until it’s suddenly derailed by a guy named Diesel, a rude monkey, and a ninja cat.

Lizzy can handle the monkey and the cat. She’s not sure about Diesel. He’s offering up his own set of unusual talents, promising to protect her from Grimoire. The kind of protection that Lizzy suspects might involve guarding her body day and night.

The Seven Deadly Sins are pride, greed, lust, envy wrath, sloth and gluttony. That pretty much covers everything that is wicked. Diesel thinks it also pretty much covers everything that’s fun. And Lizzy thinks Diesel and the Seven Deadly Sins cover everything her mother warned her about.

Review:

I’ve wanted to try a Janet Evanovich book for a while. Everyone seemed to love them. But I was never certain where to start; there are so many of them. So, when I came across Wicked Appetite, clearly labeled book one in a series I jumped at it. (For the record, I think Diesel is a character from another of Evanovich’s series. But the book certainly stood alone.) After all the anticipation I was severely let down. I found the whole thing silly beyond belief. And not even endearingly silly, just stupid silly. I was irritated by all the onomatopoeia, the dialogue was ridiculous, the plot paper thin, and the characters shallow. I made it all these years without ever reading one of Evanovich’s books. It looks like I’ll go several more without them. I have no desire to read another one. Lorelei King did a fine job with the narration.

Etiquette and Espionage

Book Review of Etiquette & Espionage, by Gail Carriger

I borrowed an audio copy of Etiquette & Espionage, by Gail Carrier, from my local library.


Description from Goodreads:

It’s one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It’s quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School.

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners–and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine’s, young ladies learn to finish…everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but they also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage–in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year’s education.


Review:

Carriger just never fails to amuse me. This is a more MG/YA delivery than the Parasol Protectorate series, which is one of my favorites. But I still laughed out loud more than once and loved seeing early appearances of some later familiar characters. In the end, I passed it to my daughter, sure she’ll love it too.

Quirk does a marvelous job with the narrations.

Book Review of The Wrong Dead Guy (Another Coop Heist #2), by Richard Kadrey

I borrowed an audio copy of The Wrong Dead Guy, by Richard Kadrey, through Hoopla. I chose it because I also happen to have a physical copy of it sitting on my shelf. I figured, if I wasn’t going to get round to reading it anytime soon, I might as well listen to it. Two birds, one stone and all that.

Description from Goodreads:
In this fast paced sequel to The Everything Box—the second entry in Richard Kadrey’s comedic supernatural series—chaos ensues when Coop and the team at DOPS steal a not- quite-dead and very lovesick ancient Egyptian mummy wielding some terrifying magic

Coop, a master thief sort of gone legit, saved the world from an ancient doomsday device—heroism that earned him a gig working for the Department of Peculiar Science, a fearsome top secret government agency that polices the odd and strange. Now Woolrich, Coop’s boss at the DOPS, has Coop breaking into a traveling antiquities show to steal a sarcophagus containing the mummy of a powerful Egyptian wizard named Harkhuf. With the help of his pals Morty, Giselle, and a professor that’s half-cat, half-robotic octopus, Coop pulls off the heist without a hitch.

It’s not Coop’s fault that when DOPS opened the sarcophagus they didn’t find the mummy they were expecting. Well, it was the right mummy, but it wasn’t exactly dead—and now it’s escaped, using a type of magic the organization hasn’t encountered before. Being a boss, Woolrich blames his underling for the screw up and wants Coop to find the missing Harkhuf and make it right, pronto.

Digging into Harkhuf’s history, Coop thinks the mummy is hunting for an ancient magical manuscript that will help him bring his old lover back to life.

Which wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t a warrior sorceress hell-bent on conquering the world with her undead armies.

Coop would very much like to run from the oncoming chaos. It’s one thing to steal a mummy, but another to have to deal with head-hunting bureaucrats, down-on-their luck fortune tellers, undead mailroom clerks, and a rather unimpressed elephant. Unfortunately, there’s nowhere to run. If he wants the madness to stop, he’s going to have to suck it up and play hero one more time. But if Coop manages to save the world AGAIN, he’s definitely going to want a lot of answers. And a raise.

Review:
I thought this was ok. It was funny (as it was meant to be), but it felt like it went overboard into slapstick, almost stupid-funny. And stupid-funny isn’t really my cup of tea.

Also, I didn’t realize was a sequel when I picked the book up. I was able to follow it just fine—it basically stands alone—with the exception of any sort of character introductions. Maybe I’d have been more invested in them if I hadn’t had to figure out things like Jizelle being Coop’s girlfriend on my own. But honestly probably not. They were too busy being pithy to be relatable.

All in all, I’d call this a middle of the road read for me. I liked it well enough, but didn’t love it. Oliver Wyman did a fine job with the narration though.