Gold Star Review: The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line

The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line
Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham
Veronica Mars, book one

Ten years after graduating from high school in Neptune, California, Veronica Mars is back in the land of sun, sand, crime, and corruption. She’s traded in her law degree for her old private investigating license, struggling to keep Mars Investigations afloat on the scant cash earned by catching cheating spouses until she can score her first big case.

Now it’s spring break, and college students descend on Neptune, transforming the beaches and boardwalks into a frenzied, week-long rave. When a girl disappears from a party, Veronica is called in to investigate. But this is no simple missing person’s case; the house the girl vanished from belongs to a man with serious criminal ties, and soon Veronica is plunged into a dangerous underworld of drugs and organized crime. And when a major break in the investigation has a shocking connection to Veronica’s past, the case hits closer to home than she ever imagined. (Description from Goodreads.com)

Picking up where the recently released movie left off (*Caution - This means Spoilers ahead!!*) this first book in the new Veronica Mars mystery series has all the smarts and sass of the original tv series.  Magic. 

Veronica has officially decided to become Neptune's next official PI. Unfortunately, Keith is none to happy about it. ..Delicious tension ensues.  Veronica gets herself into a few very sketchy spots, making everyone just a hair toohair nervous. .. she learns to use a gun and make slightly wiser choices. 

With Logan away and Veronica’s mom suddenly reentering her life,  her emotions are all over the map.  Every time she remembers why she's made this life choice,  a wrench in the works makes her doubt herself,  and yet. .. In true Veronica fashion,  by the end of the day (so to speak) she's kicking @ss, taking names,  and holding her own once again.  

I CANNOT wait for the next book.  I will follow Veronica wherever she leads!  

Gold Star. BAM.

Full disclosure:  Purchased for my Nook 

Movie Review: Veronica Mars

Veronica Mars
2014
Warner Bros.
Rated: PG-13
107 mins.

Years after walking away from her past as a teenage private eye, Veronica Mars gets pulled back to her hometown - just in time for her high school reunion - in order to help her old flame Logan Echolls, who's embroiled in a murder mystery. (Description from IMDB.com)

So, I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned at least once that Veronica Mars was my FAVORITE television show...ever. When I heard on twitter that Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell were running a Kickstarter to fund a movie...I jumped on that bandwagon so hard I was afraid I must bust a wheel off it. Well, you know what I mean.  I was one of those 91,585 backers that raised the required funds within 24 HOURS of the Kickstarter's launch.  :D  I do love me my Veronica...yes, yes I do.  

So...after months and months and months and months (basically a year) of getting behind the scenes updates and getting my t-shirt and other accoutrements supplied only to the backers, the time finally came for the MOVIE!! 

I was devastated to learn that it was only running in AMC theaters and the closest one to me was almost an hour away and in a shady-@ss town that I was NOT going to the movies in.  My heart broke.  Then I remembered that as a backer I actually received a digital copy of the movie the day it was released and I could watch it in the own comfort of my home...and my PJs, LOL.  

So, since my hubs is not a crazed fan like me and I wanted to watch without his commentary, at least the first time!, I actually watched the movie on my phone! First time for everything, right?  I worried it wouldn't be as great on such a teeny screen, but you know what I still laughed, cried, gasped, and cheered.  It was everything I'd hoped for and I cannot wait to watch it again on my big TV next time.  

SO without getting too spoilery... here's some things I loved:

Same bad-@ss Veronica.  When she comes back to Neptune to help Logan out of a bad situation, she falls back into both the P.I. habits and the witty sarcasm we all knew and loved.  

Veronica's amazing best friends, Mac and Wallace.  (Mac looks AH-MAZING now, btw...) All of the cast was truly necessary to make this work, but the scenes where these three fall back into the friendship fold just immediately drew me back in. I loved seeing them sit on the front stoop, drinking and laughing together.  

Ummm...and, yes, I will admit that all of the cast has, uh... aged well.  In fact, this particular scene where the men of Veronica Mars show off their male prowess and then somehow end up all soaking wet... well, there's a lot here for any fan to love. LOL.  Am I right?  

Basically, my overall review is OH MY GOD, GO SEE IT.  WHY HAVEN'T YOU SEEN IT YET??? 

Long-term fans of the show will love it.  There are little hints and quips and things that happen that are all shout-outs to those fans, but the best part of the movie is that you don't have to have been a fan in order to watch and enjoy this one on its own.  It is a fun, smart movie no matter if you have the background knowledge or not. 

Truly one of my favorites of all time now.  

BONUS: Check back on the blog on Friday for my review of the new Veronica Mars novel, The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line.

The Girl is Trouble

The Girl is Trouble
by Kathryn Miller Haines
sequel to The Girl is Murder

It's the Fall of 1942 and Iris's world is rapidly changing. Her Pop is back from the war with a missing leg, limiting his ability to do the physically grueling part of his detective work. Iris is dying to help, especially when she discovers that one of Pop's cases involves a boy at her school. Now, instead of sitting at home watching Deanna Durbin movies, Iris is sneaking out of the house, double crossing her friends, and dancing at the Savoy till all hours of the night. There's certainly never a dull moment in the private eye business. (description from Amazon.com)

 

Amateur sleuth, Iris, is back and the stakes have gone up another notch. The war is Europe is looming over everyone in Iris' life and it's starting to take its toll on her friends at school, her neighbors, and especially her father... The kids at school in the Jewish afterschool club have started receiving threats.  Iris learns her mother may have been murdered and because...well, the reason would have been absolutely horrifying! Unsure who she can trust, whether her best friend and father are lying to her, and feeling like her world is crumbling around her, Iris must do the best she can to find out all the nitty-gritty details to clear everything up and set her world back to rights. 

 

Again, my fellow Veronica Mars fans, remember those moments when Veronica's life was spinning completely out of control and while Veronica was emotionally crumbling, her mind seemed to clear and she became a private investigating MACHINE?  Those were the best parts of each season...the moments when I was absolutely riveted. This book, is that moment in written form.  Absolutely riveting and emotionally draining in the best type of way...

 

Full disclosure: Borrowed through interlibrary loan

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The Girl is Murder

The Girl is Murder

by Kathryn Miller Haines

 

Iris Anderson is only fifteen, but she's quickly mastering the art of deception.

It's the Fall of 1942 and Iris's world is rapidly changing. Her Pop is back from the war with a missing leg, limiting his ability to do the physically grueling part of his detective work. Iris is dying to help, especially when she discovers that one of Pop's cases involves a boy at her school. Now, instead of sitting at home watching Deanna Durbin movies, Iris is sneaking out of the house, double crossing her friends, and dancing at the Savoy till all hours of the night. There's certainly never a dull moment in the private eye business. (description from Amazon.com)

 

Love mystery? Love historical fiction?  Love Veronica Mars??? (Of course you do, who doesn't??!!) Then...you NEED to check out this book. 

 

Set in the 1940's, this book's atmosphere was exceedingly well done.  The clothes, the slang, the political unrest... I felt like I'd dropped straight into the forties and I wanted to dance the night away with the Rainbows!  The best part was that even with the slang and the differences in our culture between then and today, Iris still felt like an average teenager.  I didn't have that horrible disconnect that you can sometimes get when historical fiction feels too foreign. 

 

Iris was a great character through which to view the forties.  She's Jewish, so considered an outsider, and she's just been exiled from the richest section of New York City down to a much lower socially acceptable area because of scandal and economic misfortune... (does this sound familiar to anyone else? Is your name Veronica in real life, Iris? LOL... J/K)  Similar (but not an exact rip-off, I promise) to Veronica Mars in tone, Iris decides she needs to help her Private Investigator father to close his cases because their family desperately needs the money and because she can go places he can't. 

 

Which leads to a new life built on secrets and lies.  Soon Iris is double-crossing "friends" at school and misleading her father... how long can she keep that up?  The answer...not too long.  The real question, though, is will she be able to solve a potential murder before it all blows up in her face??

 

A rollickingly good ride...and I'm looking forward to the sequel, The Girl is Trouble.

 

Full disclosure: Borrowed from my Library