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Love Overboard by Janet Evanovich
This is the second novel by Janet Evanovich I've read. The first was Ten Big Ones. I found very little to like in the first, and if her fans will forgive me, even less in the second.
The truth is - I only gave Janet Evanovich another try because a friend whose opinion I value told me I was missing the point with Janet, that she wasn't meant to be a main course read, that she was a Twinkie, and I should enjoy her as such. So I bought her latest bestseller in paperback thinking, "No steak. Just twinkie." All I can say now is - if this is a twinkie, it's a stale, mushed one that came out of Napoleon Dynamite's pocket unwrapped.
Evanovich reminds me of a Nora Roberts or Danielle Steele without any of the story telling ability. Her characters are so shallow, so obvious, so undeveloped, so stereotypical. Just once I want one of her good guys to do something genuinely bad or vice versa. And let's remember - Evanovich is a romance novelist - but her love scenes read like something a giggling 14-year-old would write. They're ridiculous.
My reaction to her books just reinforces the important point where fiction is concerned - reader appraisal is so subjective. Dan Brown may be the only author that all of my reading friends agree on. So, with that admission and an apology to her fans, I cannot recommend Janet Evanovich's latest bestseller - Love Overboard. On the Book Beat for KSL Newsradio 1160, I'm Amanda Dickson.
