Of Crushes and Popcorn Lit

During a recent conversation detailing the celebrity crushes of some folks I know, a friend of mine made the comment, "At least those are normal crushes; I crush mainly on fictional characters!", which to be honest made me scratch my head a little.  Wha?  How?  It seemed strange to me...but then my next questions were: 1) what books was she reading, and 2) where could I find them?  (*putting on my Meg Ryan voice*  I'll read what she's reading, yes?)


And so she recommended to me the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich with the proviso that they were mostly fluff but good page-turners with a high funny-factor.  Though I have reservations about reading humor fiction (jokes never seem to translate well on the page), I thought I'd give the first book, One for the Money, a try in no small part because another friend owned the first eight books of the series, she was willing to lend them to me, and the best price to me is always "free."  Two books later I'm hooked, if a little disappointed to report having developed no amorous feelings toward any of the characters.

The heroine, Stephanie Plum, is a young novice bounty hunter living in New Jersey.  It's an occupation she sort of fell into when her job selling lingerie to discount department stores fell through and her cousin Vinnie offered a position working for his bond collection agency to help make ends meet.  Desperate to pay her bills, Plum dives headlong into the job before learning much about it and soon finds herself in over her head in a series of amusing if highly dangerous situations.  She gets some help along the way from a former flame/vice cop, Joe Morelli, and from a fellow more-seasoned bounty hunter named Ranger (who is the crushee of the first-mentioned friend above, if you're interested).

Personal musings on the series thus far:

• Jersey in-jokes abound.  I get the feeling it would be four times funnier if I was a native.
• These first books were written in the mid-90s, and I find myself snickering over Plum's fascination with high-techie things like "cellular" and/or "car phones," answering machines, and tasers.  Evanovich just released the 17th book, and I certainly hope Plum has aged with the series and at least now has e-mail (though, it would probably be an AOL account).
• Grandma Mazur is my favorite character.  Plum's own words about Grandma Mazur?  "Grandma Mazur lives with my parents now that Grampa Mazur’s eating pork rinds and deep-fried peanut butter sandwiches with Elvis. Grandma Mazur’s mostly spindle bone and slack skin. She keeps her gray hair curled tight to her head and carries a .45 long barrel in her purse."  How could you not like Grandma Mazur?
• I nearly stopped reading One for the Money halfway through when someone told me a Stephanie Plum movie was in the works as well as who had been cast in the role of Plum.  I can either "read the book" or "watch the movie," but I don't like doing both as one is always bound to ruin the other.  I won't say who was cast in the role--only to mention her name rhymes with Matherine Schmeigel and that she deeply annoys me.
• Thus far the "who done it" characters have been fairly predictable, but the journey getting there makes the reading feel worthwhile.