Metro Girl

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money or time!
Review: Because I love the Stephanie Plum books I knew I would love this one too and my finance purchased it for me. Boy was I wrong, this book was given to me I believe in late November or the beginning of December and I haven't finished it yet and I usually finish in a few hours. It is so boring and I feel like reading "NASCAR GUY" over and over again is the most annoying thing in this world. I try to read a few pages every few days but it is hard.

Rating:
Summary: Why is it Evanovich can only write Plum books?
Review: I am a huge fan of the laugh-out-loud funny Stephanie Plum books but every non-Plum Evanovich book I've tried has been just awful. Not just "not-as-good-as-Plum" awful - reallllly awful! I don't know how they can be the product of the same writer. I was willing to assume that her partner in the "full" series did most of the writing (they are terrible too) but Metro Girl and Love Overboard are billed as pure Janet E. I just don't get it.. Anyway, save your money and don't waste your time on anything that isn't Pure Plum.

Rating:
Summary: Not up to Janet Evanovich's talent
Review: I am a Janet Evanovich fan - love all of her Stephanie Plum series and full house series. Eagerly, I bought Metro Girl as soon as it hit the store and, boy, was I disappointed! It lacked the humor and zip of the Plum series. I plodded through the whole book hoping it would get better, and, at one point, I thought if I read "NASCAR guy" one more time I was going to either upchuck or start tearing the pages out. I guess this was an attempt to be funny but it sure got old in a hurry. Seemed like "NASCAR guy" was uttered on just about every page - maybe more than once per page.

Rating:
Summary: Lacks the Charm of the Stephanie Plum Series
Review: I hope Janet Evanovich has a lot of Stephanie Plum material left because the Barney series has run out of gas. I can't explain why I like the Stephanie Plum series so much because the situations are utterly unbelievable, but perhaps that's the point. While the plot lines and situations she encounters are unrealistic, the characters (in every sense of the word) all seem like people you know or are related to.

Even read on it's on terms without comparison to the Stephanie Plum series, this book lacked charm and ran the same lame jokes throughout the whole book until they got tiresome. The characters just weren't well defined enough to really make you like them. I will admit Barney has one positive - at least she has to rein in the appetite for SOME meals, while Stephanie eats like a horse and somehow never gains enough weight to be unable to get in her jeans (though maybe I like the fantasy - maybe we all like the thought there's SOMEONE out there that can eat like that and get away with it).

All that said, I've read worse and I did read the entire book, although shallow me got bored with all the politican cuban intrigue plot. It's like Evanovich got confused and suddenly thought the same people reading her books for comic relief and entertainment wanted something more intellectual to be happening.

Lastly, I have to raise the point of location. Barney came from the Canton area of Baltimore, where her father has a garage. However, she later refers to Barney as the Queen of something I can't remember of Baltimore COUNTY. Sorry, but Canton is in Baltimore CITY, not Baltimore County. Having lived in the Baltimore area all my life, I have to say that Barney and her family better fit the description of a Dundalk location, which IS in Baltimore County.

Bottom line, don't read this book expecting it to be as entertaining, charming or funny as the Stephanie Plum series.




Rating:
Summary: Evanovich's Back On Top
Review: I read through some of these reviews and a lot of people are comparing the main character in Metro Girl to Stephanie Plum. Don't do it! They are two different people in two different books. If you can separate them then you will really, really enjoy this book.

Janet Evanovich is back with a true crime/comedy book this time. The characters have their crazy quirks and funny one-liners like they should. The plot is intense and you wonder what is going to happen next. This is a must read if you are a Janet Evanovich fan.

Rating:
Summary: She's no Stephanie Plum
Review: In Metro Girl we meet Alex Barnaby, a "grease monkey meets barbie" Stephanie Plum wanna-be who has just arrived in Miami after receiving a mysterious phone call alerting her that her brother may be in trouble.

In true Janet Evanovich style, Alex soon finds herself smack in the middle of a huge mess that spans across Florida and into Cuba and involves stolen treasure, the US/Cuba trade embargo, Fidel Castro, the FBI, random hit men, a missing girl and one insanely annoying NASCAR driver/love interest named Sam Hooker.

The story itself is a little far fetched. But that's not so much what bothers me. What I just couldn't get past was the really bad character development. Sam Hooker (aka "NASCAR Guy") was so annoying that I was actually hoping Alex would go for one of the bad guys.

I really hope there is no sequel to this story. But if there is, I'll know to cross it off my list.



Rating:
Summary: Fun. A good read
Review: Janet captures the fun and magic of Miami and the Keys very well. I did not initially want to read this book because of references to cars and racing. this book merely uses these 2 things as background & is the same fun stuff of the Stephanie Plum kind.

Rating:
Summary: My first Evanovich book
Review: Likable characters, action, romance, lots of laughs. What more could you ask for?
I started reading one of the Plum books and to be honest I preferred "Metro Girl."


Rating:
Summary: Not terrible, but not good either
Review: No this book is not terrible. I have read terrible books. Perhaps if it had it not been pushed on me as PLUM like, I would have appreciated it a little more. The characters are rehashes and "NASCAR Guy" got so old that about half way through the book, I just put it down and it's been that way since then (which was actually when it came out). I supose I'll finish it eventually when I have nothing better to do. In the mean time, I hold out for Steph & Lula and the rest of the Original Cast. :)

Rating:
Summary: A waste of time and money
Review: This was the first Janet Evanovich book I've ever read and it will be the last. "Metro Girl" was silly to the extreme, with implausible situations and nonsensical, repetitive dialogue. (Everyone who meets Barney tells her how hot she looks, and "NASCAR Guy" refers to himself as "NASCAR Guy" a hundred times). Not funny, just annoying. This book is the sort of pure fluff that might entertain a 13 year old. Don't waste your money or your time.