Customer Reviews

Eleven on Top (Stephanie Plum, No. 11)

5 star:		(187)
4 star:		(87)
3 star:		(58)
2 star:		(30)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Of course, I had to read "Eleven on Top" today. I can't remember ever not finishing a new Janet Evanovich novel the first day I got one. "Eleven's" no different!

"Eleven" is different from its predecessors in that Stephanie Plum actually takes the advice of I've lost count how many people and quits her bounty hunter job in search of a real job. She's lucky--she gets the first job she applies for at the button factory, and the second with a local dry cleaners, and the with a fast-food chicken franchise "Cluck in a Bucket"....all with disastrously funny results.

THe triangle between Steph, Joe Morelli, and Ranger is throbbing with tension. This is particularly so since Stephanie ends up working for Ranger at Rangeman Security--to keep safe. Which hunk is going to claim Steph this time--and for how long? I'm not telling!

Steph is also being stalked by someone who tells her she thought they were dead. They attack with bullets, fire....Meanwhile, Steph, Ranger, and Joe are all looking for four Trenton men who have disappeared with their cars on the same day. This plotline is a real mystery folks and had me guessing all the way through the book. Definitely a great addition to the Plum series....

Oh yeah, and the laughs keep on coming. Your favorites are here: Grandma Mazur, the eighty year old teenager, the prospective brother-in-law Albert Kloughn...

All the Stephanie books are better than Prozac and almost as good as chocolate to cheer a person up.

Evanovich is right: "Eleven" is DEFINITELY on top.

Stephanie has decided being a bounty hunter is too dangerous, so she quits her job working for Cousin Vinnie and tries to find something safer. After working for the button factory (fired before she even starts work), a dry cleaners, and Kluck-in-a-Bucket, she finally ends up working for Ranger. However, someone is still trying to kill her, and her cars are getting blown up at an alarming rate.

Also, her sister Valerie is getting married, and Stephanie is expeetec to walk up the aisle dressed in eggplant. And for no very good reason she has told her family that she can play the cello (she can't) and they are expecting her to play it at the wedding. And then she decides she is going to give up eating sugar, could things get any worse?

There are a lot of funny scenes, my favourite is the one where Grandma Mazur and Grandma Bella hav a fight (in the funeral parlour, where else?). However, I found myself slightly less gripped by this one than by the previous volumes. Maybe it's because she's not a bounty hunter any more, but there seemed to be less excitement and suspense than in the other stories. And I found the denoument too preposterous to believe. Also I found myself wondering how much longer she can keep stringing Morelli along without making a committment, before he just gets fed up with her.

Never mind, you don't read a Stephanie Plum novel for the realism, you read it for the laughs, and there are plenty of those, more than you get with most other authors anyway.

It's a good day when the latest Stephanie Plum novel shows up... Eleven On Top by Janet Evanovich. This may be one of my favorites of the series...

Stephanie Plum has decided to quit the bounty hunting business. Her life isn't going anywhere, and she's decided to get a steady job with a regular paycheck. Of course, not having anyone shoot at her or blow up her car would be nice too. But of course, nothing is normal or steady when it comes to Ms. Plum's life. She gets fired on day one from the button factory. She gets fired from the dry cleaning job after a couple of days (and when the matriarch of the owner's family dies when Plum's car blows up). And her job in the fast food business ends after a day when the chicken restaurant she works at burns down after a couple of days. So why all the pyrotechnics? Someone's apparently out to settle an old score, and Stephanie's life seems to be in peril. Threatening notes, exploding car bombs, exploding garages, burning restaurants, and she's not even in the business any more. Add into the mix that she's now working for Ranger at the same time she's trying to nurse Morelli back to health from a broken leg...

As I said above, this may be one of my favorites in the Stephanie Plum series. I enjoyed the interaction between her and Lula as Lula tries to take over her old job (and still get Stephanie to help with all the apprehensions). There's a bit more Ranger time as you learn more about his business, as well as wondering whether Stephanie will succumb to her urges to jump his bones. And her gramma is as zany as ever. Even though you think you know how the story is shaping up, there are still plenty of twists that accelerate at the end, making sure that I stayed up later than I wanted to find out how it all ended.

A good, fun read, and another excellent installment in the series...

Having read all eleven of these, I can only conclude that the author needs to invent some new characters and situations to go with Stephanie Plum. How many times can I be amused by her car being destroyed? By her grandmother's antics at a funeral home "viewing"? By the rippling muscles and puerile approaches of her two suitors? By the malaprops of her ex-hooker friend? By the hamster in his soup can? By the dysfunctional sister and her kids, one of whom thinks she is a horse? Perhaps if I had read all these with a year between each, it wouldn't be so obvious. But, alas....

There is humor, I'll admit, but it gets thin when the same joke is told over and over and over.

If you don't like slapstick type of humor, these books are not for you! The first of these books I read, "Seven Up", I wasn't sure I liked but then I read "Hard Eight" and "To the Nines" and soon I got the humor and they kept me laughing.

This Stephanie Plum story starts with Stephanie having quit her job as a bondsman 30 seconds before the opening of the story. Lula and Connie in her office are shocked and Vinnie, her cousin and boss, is outraged. Stephanie has decided she is tired of her cars being blown up, members of her family being hurt or in danger, and being in danger herself physically. She has heard there are job openings at the button factory in town and decides to apply there. She is hired as a receptionist to replace the one that just left and is suing for sexual harassment. Stephanie "celebrates" her new job with on-again-off-again boyfriend, Joseph Morelli, and is 90 minutes late for her first day on the job! She refuses to do any sexual favors for the boss to make up for her lateness and is fired.

In the meantime, she is receiving threatening notes from an unknown stalker in her apartment and in her car. Her car is set on fire, she is shot at, her grandmother and Morelli's grandmother get into a fight at a funeral home and so on!!

Lots of menace and mayhem ensue, Stephanie works hard with Ranger's and Morelli's help to investigate and find her stalker and who it is turns out a big surprise.

Romance, sexual tension, suspense and lots of laughs make a fun read!

I can't even believe how incredibly dull this one was! I loved 1 - 9, 10 was a little iffy, but 11 was awful! Stephanie is getting dull and stupid, I can't stand Ranger any longer - can he say anything more than "Babe"? Ever??? Lula is the only bright star in an otherwise dreary day of a book and even she got a little tiring. Just marry Morrelli, have accident prone kids, and be done with it!!!!

I have, in the past, adored Stephanie Plum. As others point out she is getting stale. This book was truly boring. I can not believe this author would use the same tactics throughout the entire book. She did not really get into the mystery until the final 15 pages (and it was predictable).Actually I didn't think this one was going to be a mystery at all. I cannot think of one new twist, other than alittle insight into Ranger's other life. Just the usual car bombings, food in the hair, Joe or Ranger... Blah, blah, blah. It would have been nice if Janet had used this book to wrap up and marry Stephanie off to one the hunks. Just be done with it. I know I am.

Did anybody else feel like this book was written in a couple different phases and somehow lost it's initial direction? The story in the 2nd (or so) half of the book deteriorated to paragraphs of Stephanie obsessing about either food or Ranger. For most of the 2nd half what happened to Lula, the family, or the missing men?

That aside, it's absoutley amazing to me that there is no character development in this series. I posted last year after reading #10 that it seems like having the characters grow has tons of potential to be funny. I really don't get why that is not happening, with any of the characters! At all! Also, there no new characters. The stories are all repeats at this point. I agree with a couple other posts that comment about how many times can Ranger respond with "Babe". I cringed everytime I read that. He's suppose to be an intelligent person! The situations are all the same. How long can Stephanie date Joe while constantly lusting after Ranger? How many times can Ranger be suggestive, but only suggestive? How many cars can blow up? How much junk food can one person consume? How many times can one person fall in garbage or food?

I know this series is suppose to be light and fun (and at the beginning definitely was - no doubt about it!) but the story is old and stale at this point. Sadly disappointing! I really hope there are some major changes in #12, as I would love to laugh like I did while reading the first books in this series!

I don't read Evanovich when I'm looking for something deeply literary. That said, I think she is one of the best of the best as far as sheer entertainment goes. I've thoroughly enjoyed every one of the Stephan Plum novels and, ss always, this one is a scream. Evanovich is fabulous at creating zany characters. The food fight was priceless. I'll certainly be coming back for more.

It was an interesting twist for Stephanie to quit her job with Vinnie. In the beginning it sort of bummed me out. But when Lula promoted herself to take over Stephanie's job and then constantly needed Stephanie to bail her out, that became pretty amusing. Stephanie's various jobs were mildly amusing also, but the whole car exploding thing is getting old. There are so many other ways to entertain. The reason I rated this book only 3 stars is due to Stephanie's relationships with Joe and Ranger. I can appreciate the author trying to please all the readers, the readers rooting for Joe and the readers rooting for Ranger (my money is on Ranger), however, at some point it just feels like Stephanie's in limbo. It's going nowhere with Joe and going nowhere with Ranger and the reader feels that. It's become almost boring, her interactions with these men. It almost feels like she's being cruel to Joe, living with him, yet flirting with Ranger at work. Stephanie's going to have to make a decision pretty soon, before the readers start to lose complete interest in either of them.