Review: ONE FOR THE MONEY

One For The Money by Janet Evanovich
Book 1 of the Stephanie Plum series
Narrated by CJ Critt
Format: audiobook
Genre: ?investigative suspense

About One For The Money:

Read the Dynamite Blockbuster that Started It All!

Welcome to Trenton, New Jersey, home to wiseguys, average Joes, and Stephanie Plum, who sports a big attitude and even bigger money problems (since losing her job as a lingerie buyer for a department store). Stephanie needs cash--fast--but times are tough, and soon she's forced to turn to the last resort of the truly desperate: family.

Stephanie lands a gig at her sleazy cousin Vinnie's bail bonding company. She's got no experience. But that doesn't matter. Neither does the fact that the bail jumper in question is local vice cop Joe Morelli. From the time he first looked up her dress to the time he first got into her pants to the time Steph hit him with her father's Buick, M-o-r-e-l-l-i has spelled t-r-o-u-b-l-e. And now the hot guy is in hot water--wanted for murder.

Abject poverty is a great motivator for learning new skills, but being trained in the school of hard knocks by people like psycho prizefighter Benito Ramirez isn't. Still, if Stephanie can nab Morelli in a week, she'll make a cool ten grand. All she has to do is become an expert bounty hunter overnight--and keep herself from getting killed before she gets her man.

Source: Info in the About One For The Money was taken from at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6853.One_for_the_Money on 04/03/2012.

Review:

The main protagonist, Stephanie Plum, is too stupid to live (TSTL)... but, this time around it's in keeping with her character. This way it's just slightly less irritating because you sorta expect her to have a "blonde moment" and her stupid escapades are kinda funny. Stephanie is too stupid to live and survived only by sheer dumb luck. And that's the beauty of her character! Still annoying, but tolerable and at the same time adorable. So I think I am still going to go watch the movie adaptation of this book and see if they've editted Stephanie's TSTL or made it worse. Plus I think Katherine Heigl fits Stephanie. Trailer of the movie is at the bottom of this post. What I do like about this book is that the story did not depend on Stephanie to act stupid to give the story some drama. The plot is nicely done that it isn't so straight forward after all. After reading the Aurora Teagarden mysteries, I do appreciate a plot that is not so thin with holes and depended on the main protagonist acting stupid to give the story a bit of drama. That probably brought the standard bar quite low but I still enjoyed the not-so-straightforward plot of this book.

I also like the narrator's interpretation of the book. She brought her own flavour in her reading and I think it made the book more interesting. Though the quality of her voice is not as easy to the ears as Alyssa Bresnahan or Johanna Parker but her reading is perfect. Good diction. Good voice modulation. Excellent interpretation. Offsets the mere quality of voice. If she reads more books in my genre, I would listen to her again.

Overall I enjoyed this book very much and looking forward to reading/listening more books in this series!

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4.5
Character development = 4.5
Story itself = 4.5
Ending = 4
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 1
Pace = (8.5 hours long)
Plot = 4.5
Narrator = 4.5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries


The trailer of the movie adaptation of this book:

Thank you to RCT Library for letting me borrow this audiobook!!

FTC Disclosure:
This audiobook was borrowed from the library. No money received for this review.