Comment Of The Day

I just started reading the Jaine Austen series by Laura Levine and I'm kind of iffy on it. I'm reading Last Writes. It's not terrible; it's a pretty short and quick to read through. But some parts are a bit annoying (how many more times did she have to put "okay I didn't really say that"?) so I decided to check out Amazon reviews. And I came across this response to a review:

Amazon.com: adnaper "adnaper"'s review of Last Writes (Jaine Austen Mysteries)

Finally someone called out another on prasing Joanne Fluke. I see a lot of reviews for mysteries that are constantly comparing them to the Hannah Swenson series and how nothing is as great and blah blah blah and I'm like what in the hell am I missing? The Hannah Swenson series is far from great. I don't understand why so many people put it on such a high pedestal. It's not that the writing is terrible (it isn't, for the most part). It's just Hannah and every character is so goddamn insufferable it just completely destroys any of the good side of it.

Why Am I Wasting My Time?

I swore the last Hannah Swensen book I read would be my last. Yet I decided to check out Cinnamon Roll Murder last night at the library. I see nothing has changed in the series.

The jazz band name- Cinnamon Roll Six? Seriously?

The entire family started irritating me throughout the series and now they are downright obnoxious. Um, isn't Michelle in college? Shouldn't she be in class? And what exactly does Andrea do all damn day that she is never around her kids? Hannah is the worst. She is a judgmental, arrogant, condescending, whiny pain in the ass who needs to get off of her high horse, stop correcting everyone's damn grammar, and start learning some fucking technology. I find it incredibly difficult for someone of her age to never use a computer, especially having a degree in English. How did she get through college? A typewriter? Seriously? Come on, Joanne Fluke, be a little more believable. I honestly think she is completely clueless to the later generations.

In the first few pages, of course the sisters are there to help with the accident. And of course they know exactly what to do. And when they meet the band members and groupies, the sisters are talking with one of the groupies, Lynnette, about checking the driver and this is the passage:

"Did you try to find a pulse?" Michelle asked her.
"Do I look like an idiot? Sure I tried to find a pulse. There wasn't any, and he wasn't breathing, either. I've got some medical training, you know."
Of course you do, Hannah's mind replied. You know how to say "Doctor will see you at ten on Thursday, Mrs. Smith. Please let us know twenty-four hours in advance if you can't keep your appointment.

Seriously, Hannah? Do tell how you know exactly what Lynnette did in the medical office! Maybe she was a medical assistant, who do, in fact, have to be CPR certified in most, if not all, states. And what exactly does Hannah do again? Oh, right. She is a baker! She makes food!

And then the scene in the hospital was just too ridiculous to get into. Buddy couldn't go into the exam room himself? And I had to laugh at two different conversations between Hannah and her mother in the waiting room. This passage was one:

"It was the band bus carrying the Cinnamon Roll Six. The rest of the cars in the accident were blocking the road, and it took the paramedics a while to get to to the bus. Michelle and I took the access road and walked across the ditch. We were the first ones there."
"Oh my!"
"The driver's dead, but everyone else seems to be okay except the keyboard player. He may have a broken wrist, but they won't know for sure until he has X-rays."

This is a page later:

"I know I'm right. And the worst of it is..." Delores stopped speaking and stared hard at Hannah. "You said was. You said the driver's name was Clayton."
It was Hannah's turn to sigh. She'd spoken without thinking, and now she was stuck. There was nothing for it but to tell Delores what she already suspected. "The driver's dead, Mother."

Uhm.....duh? You already told your mother the bus driver died?

Hannah's constant whining about Norman being engaged was beyond irritating. Yes, the situation with Doctor Bev was dirty, but maybe if Hannah didn't drag her feet so bad, she would have been married to Norman a long time ago. How this supposedly ugly technological phobic prude has two boyfriends still boggles my mind. And I find it hard to believe that it took Norman, a fucking professional with a dental degree, so long to get a paternity test. What a dumbass.

And the thing that aggravates me the most in these books is the interfering with cases. Now I read a lot of books where the main character investigates, despite not being a part of the police force. It does irritate me, but if the books are good enough, I can overlook it, because I know it's just fiction. I can even sometimes overlook certain things that would be deemed downright illegal. But these books take the cake. Hannah and her family are ridiculous with how they interfere. And then they have the BALLS to actually steal documents that not one of them should even have legal access to. I don't know how none of them have ever been arrested. Oh right. One of Hannah's boyfriends is a cop. *eyeroll* You would think that would make them more likely to be arrested. But no. Not the perfect little Swensen family. Everything just always turns out perfect for them.

I recently read a few of the Donut Shop Mystery series by Jessica Beck and one thing I noticed when reading reviews of the different books were complaints about them being rip-offs of the Hannah Swensen series. I see some similarities; however, the characters in the Donut Shop Mysteries are a million times more likable. Not to mention......mmmm.....donuts.

Oh, and nice to end the book without ever closing the bus driver's case.

Same Structure, Different Storyline Murder

I have been reading the Hannah Swenson series by Joanne Fluke off and on over the past several months. Currently I am on book #9, Key Lime Murder, and I have two more books checked out, but I am not even sure if I want to read them. Why?

1. The main character is getting increasingly irritating, especially with the constant grammar correcting, regardless of whether it is in her head or outloud. She gets mad at people for the dumbest reasons, like in this book, she gets pissed off at Norman and Mike for discussing details of the death of the victim in front of her. Oh, my bad, Willa. Don't call her "victim" because it's insulting to Hannah, since Willa is apparently her good buddy old pal, even though it seems to me that they don't even know each other that well.

2. The love triangle - come on. You're full grown adults. I almost want to say oh please go with Norman, but that poor man could do a lot better than wasting his time waiting for some stupid technologically impaired apparently unattractive frizzy red head yet has two guys fighting over her that can't make up her mind which man she wants even though the answer is so obvious it could hit her in the face.

3. The two men being friends with each other? Give me a break.

4. Word repetitiveness- I just finished part of a chapter and it was mentioned multiple times about Michelle being her youngest sister. We got it. Like the first time it was mentioned in the book. Back in chapter 2. This is just from this one chapter, chapter 14:

"Morning," Hannah said, spotting her youngest sister at the table the moment she entered her gleaming white cooking and baking domain

The sense of good humor her youngest sister has served along with her delicious omelet was short lived.

Hannah glanced at Michelle. Her youngest sister was holding Moishe in her lap while she chuckled silently.

5. Delores, her mother, is annoying. She reminds of those annoying old hags that can't accept that they are old, so they try to look and act young. And also like she is old money high class society. And the middle sister, Andrea is so fucking vain. Oh no! She found a gray hair!

6. Speaking of, does Andrea ever actually take care of her two brats?

7. And probably the most annoying thing of all - Hannah is the only person who ever comes across the dead bodies. And only once was a suspect?

8. And she is the only one capable of ever solving cases. Could someone in real life ever get away with as much interfering in murder cases as she does?

9. How is no one in that town about 400 pounds?

10. Tracey, the niece and one of Andrea's brats, is annoying as well. I despise the whole precocious child thing in a lot of books I read. Kids are annoying enough as it is. Making them act and talk like little adults only increases the annoyance.

11. I have a very hard time believing someone from what I presume is or right before my generation could be so technologically stupid. She can't even use a computer? Or a cellphone? Come on! Even my extremely technologically-retarded mother knows more about technology than Hannah!

I have a proposition for Ms. Fluke. What I would like to see happen is for both men to break up with Hannah at the same exact time. Have them both come and tell her they tired of her little games and that she is pathetic and they are both done. Then she'll probably lose her freaking mind and go on a murderous rampage. Then she will "find out" these people have been missing and she will go pretend to stumble across the bodies as usual with her new dessert nearby, pretend to investigate and find all kinds of clues to divert her from being a suspect, Mike finally grows a brain and Norman finally grows a set and they both figure out Hannah is the killer, and then she is thrown into jail. Ta-da! End of series!

And don't poke holes in my suggested premise. After all, this is the same book series that tries to say that Atlantic City is 2 hours ahead of Minnesota. Uh, no it is not.