Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #75277 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03
• Format: Large Print
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Customer Reviews

Pre-Plum Romance Built on Female Hormones and Prat-Fall Humor

If you have a choice between reading the romance, The Grand Finale, and re-reading a favorite Plum, go ahead and stick in your thumb and pull out the Plum. Then you'll have a grand finale to your evening, rather than the experience of reading a book about a grand finale . . . that isn't totally satisfying.

The opening of The Grand Finale is strong . . . but the book quickly runs downhill from there. Fans of Stephanie Plum will see parallels between that wonderful, goofy character and pizza-store owner and college student, Berry Knudsen. Fans of Grandma Mazur will enjoy the plot complications of having three somewhat similar characters in the story . . . but will be disappointed that they lack the total daffiness of Grandma Mazur's fixations. The familiar pratfalls are here, but they come a bit too fast and too frequently to be continually funny.

The book's story primarily depends on two plot devices: an attractive man, Jake Sawyer, who is ready to settle down with a woman he just met, and continuing failures to communicate between Berry and Jake. The former device works much better than the latter, which comes across as strained and more than a little unrealistic.

I thought that the book's value was mostly to be found in exploring the idea of trying to be kind to others, and how that affects how you organize your life. I also enjoyed comparing Berry and Stephanie to better understand the brilliance of Ms. Evanovich's writing about Stephanie Plum.

Soooo Good
A rerelease of an old book. All the humour, plus origins of some finer points of the Plum books. The heroine running a Pizza delivery service, at times without a car (shades of Stephnie's car problems), older ladies with their own personalities, and what a "hero". Loved the end with her verbal comments on his new car, and her true thoughts (not vocalised). Evanovich at her best.