Wicked Appetite: Lizzy Tucker, #1 -- Janet Evanovich

After inheriting her Aunt Ophelia's house, Lizzy Tucker's life takes a turn for the better. She quits her job in NYC, moves to Massachusetts and gets a job making cupcakes (and other things, but cupcakes are her specialty) in a small local bakery. 

Everything is going well.

Until Mr. Tall, Blond, Handsome and Clearly Dangerous shows up and informs her that due to a Power she hadn't even known she'd possessed, she is A) in danger and B) going to have to help him Save the World by collecting the Seven Stones that control the Seven Deadly Sins before his Tall, Dark, Handsome, Clearly Dangerous and Probably Evil cousin.

A seriously tough housecat and an extremely rude monkey also take part in the action. As well as a Book of Spells that may or may not actually work.

This, being the first book in a series, only deals with one of the stones. You may have deduced from the title, Wicked Appetite, that this adventure revolves around the stone that controls gluttony.

I enjoyed it -- enough that I zoomed right along, laughed out loud a few times, and, if I'd had it on a day off, I'd have read it in one sitting -- but not so much that I'm excited for the second book in the series. It's a book that was enjoyable enough during the couple of hours it took to read (it's just over three hundred pages, but has billion-point font, huge margins and is double-spaced), but that doesn't stand up to any sort of scrutiny.

While she's got an engaging, chatty voice, Lizzy's not a particularly interesting heroine. She's pretty much defined by her cooking skills and by her lack of adventurousness -- there's just not really anything else going on there. Which makes Diesel's (YES. HIS NAME IS DIESEL. AND THE COUSIN'S NAME IS GERWULF GRIMOIRE. I KID YOU NOT.) attraction to her feel bizarre and forced (like Evanovich knew that romance-y stuff was a necessity, so she just plunked it in). For that matter, Diesel's not very interesting, either. He just swans around being attractive and sleeps naked and chuckles at the hilariousness that ensues whenever Lizzy is Overcome by the Power of Gluttony.

And, yeah. I get that it's a farce, and so it's possible that I'm being too hard on it. I'm sure that there'll be plenty of people who enjoy it. But, you know what? Something can be a farce and be well-written and not, you know, lazy. And this felt lazy. Lazy and phoned-in and like something that was written solely to jump on the paranormal bandwagon. (Though I at least give the Evanovich credit for a fun premise. And for NOT writing about vampires.)

Example of the lazy? It bothered me that Lizzy's boss was never ruffled by the fact that her staff was always late, hardly ever seemed to get anything done, and that, over the course of the book, her bakery got trashed multiple times. Is she secretly independently wealthy? Is the bakery just a hobby? What gives? That's exactly the sort of thing that kicks me out of a story immediately. Minor, yes, but annoying.

Anyway. Meh. I gave it a two on GoodReads, because while I didn't DISLIKE it -- and I certainly thought it was more fun than that Meg Cabot vampire novel I read earlier this year -- I felt that it was formulaic, uninspired, and just... weak. Weak, weak, WEAK.

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Previously:

The halfway point.

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Book source: My local library.

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Comments

[erin]

If you'd like a fun (and funny) paranormal book that doesn't seem like a cheesy attempt to cash in on the trend, might I suggest _Wild Ride_ by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer?

[Cheryl]

Funny -- I was going to chime in and recommend AGNES AND THE HITMAN by Crusie & Mayer, for a book with a great cooking heroine, a great house, a great (if somewhat quiet) hero, and real consequences. No paranormalcy, though.

[tanita]

Hm. Okay - good to know that it's at least not UNlikable. I am going to try some Evanovich when the Cybs are done, maybe, and I need to empty my brain. Thanks.

[Loretta Ross]

Y'all realize this isn't entirely new? The character of Diesel (and maybe his cousin too, but definitely Diesel) is from Evanovitch's "Between the Numbers" Stephanie Plum books.

I loved the early Stephanie Plum books, but they've begun to feel terribly repetitive and, honestly, I'm getting really tired of reading about animal droppings.

[Leila]

Oooooooooooooooh. I didn't make it to the BtN books, so Diesel was new to me. Wait, so there is a paranormal element in the later Stephanie Plum books? Or did she not know about his super powers?

[Jackie Parker]

The paranormal elements in the Stephanie Plum books are solely reserved to the BtN books. I'm with Loretta on the Plum books. I stopped reading around 11 or 12 when I could no longer take the monotony of plot. The thing that might be nice with this series is that you kinda have to stop after seven. Unlike SP.

As I was reading this I was wondering if you had read Insatiable, and if you were digging at that. So I laughed to find that you were.

[Mark]

not so sure about this..