oh stephanie plum, our time, it's coming to an end.

look, i love these as diversionary fluff, or, perhaps, more specifically, as a palate cleanser when my brain feels overwhelmed with more serious stuff.

but that's no excuse for how long this thing is taking to play out.

here's my thing: i understand the basic tenets of the formulaic serialized fiction. and just because i can smell a villain a mile away or predict that stephanie will be sent home several times with care packages of food from her mother after taking grandma mazur to yet another viewing at the funeral parlor doesn't mean that the author should have permission to completely stop progressing the bigger picture. if your story isn't building to some sort of inevitable decision or conclusion, well, what good is it?

listen, i don't care if stephanie sleeps with half of jersey and then emasculates the other half. i really don't. she has no commitments; she can sleep with whomever she wants. do i think it's a little bit gross that she isn't honest about the fact that she's down and dirty with both morelli and ranger around the same time? sure. but it's fiction. it's not like evanovich is going to give her a raging case of scabies to teach her better puritanical values or convince her to guard her chaste treasures better. no reader wants that. we don't read these things because stephanie is morally correct, frigidly pure, or emotionally stable. we read them because she's a lucky little basketcase with enough chutzpah to fuel a small revolution. but even that schtick is wearing thin.

but cut her some slack. she's fictional, after all.

worst case scenario, we get a baby plum on the way and evanovich wastes another book trying to get us to guess the daddy.

at this point, morelli's "cupcake" and ranger's "babe" are starting to grate a bit. i need something more, some bigger goal than marriage and babies. maybe steady employment? a better life for rex? i don't know.

if i don't get it soon, i'm done with this series.