I tapped out here once upon a time. Facebook informed me that the 23rd installment was due and I took a trip down memory lane. Nostalgic but a lot LESS fun with years of maturity and decent mystery romance books under my belt. 
 The largest issue with the Stephanie Plum books is the lack of growth. I don't like love triangles at the best of times, but especially when they're used as a crutch. There are a lot of crutches: Stephanie's inapptitude and somehow she never learns to be compitent?? blowing up things (cars, apartments, buildings).... I could go on, but many other people have made checklists. 
 She never grows as a person. Yes, they can be fun books. Sometimes a character hits me just right, or sometimes it SEEMS like romantic development happens, or that she's actually reevaluating her life.... but alas, it's almost like old, 90's kids cartoons that, no matter where the plot goes in that episode, the whole universe resets at the end of the show. Leaving myself, and many others, simply unsatisfied. 
 Besides all that there's just that sense of laziness. Ms. Evanovich has basically said in the past "if it ain't broke don't fix it" so reusing the same general outline for each book "ain't broke" but it is. I'm just shocked at how many people still read these. They are fun, quick, books. But they're all the SAME at the heart. Soulles by now. How can you write essentially the same book 11 times and not heave a little "hohum" when it comes to the 12th or the 23rd apparently? 
 Oh, I won't be soldiering on like some, at the time I had the realization that nothing would change, and from scanning reviews of books 12-22, apparently things haven't.