Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse

Top Ten Tuesday: Full Sentence Titles

/ Kristi / 23 Comments

It’s time for another Top Ten list from That Artsy Reader Girl. The topic today is book titles that are complete sentences, which turned out to be a little easier than I thought it would be. Not that I found a ton of them, but I did find more than 10 and had to narrow it down. So I went with only books that I’ve read, and I’ve put them in order of lower ratings to higher ratings (as rated by me).

10. Don’t Keep Silent by Elizabeth Goddard
The third in a series, all 3 of which have titles that are complete sentences. See my review here.

9. All My Friends Are Dead by Avery Monsen & Jory John
My husband loves this book. I thought it was okay. But the important thing is that not only is the title a complete sentence, it’s even written in sentence format on the book cover, with a period at the end and everything!

8. His Name Was Zach by Peter Martuneac
The first in a trilogy, all 3 of which have titles that are complete sentences. See my review here.

7. Paris Never Leaves You by Ellen Feldman
See my review here.

6. Hope is a Dangerous Place by Jim Baton
See my review here.

5. Dad Is Fat by Jim Gaffigan
See my review here.

4. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
Somehow this book always makes my top ten lists… See my review here.

3. Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse by Lee Goldberg
First in a series of novels about the TV detective, many of the other books in the series have complete-sentence titles too. See my review here.

2. Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein
In a way, one could possibly read this in a different way than would be needed for it to be seen as a complete sentence. I choose to read it as an imperative with the implied “you” as the subject. See my review here. (Another similar title is Escape from the Island of Aquarius.)

1. I Want to Punch You in the Face But I Love Jesus by Sherri Lynn
This book has been in a few of my TTT posts in the past too, but come on, it fits so well! See my review here.

Looking for books for this list was more fun than I expected it to be. What’s on your list?

Book Review: Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse
Mr. Monk #1
by Lee Goldberg
read by Laura Hicks

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Mystery

When a firehouse dog is murdered, the defective detective Adrian Monk’s help is enlisted by his assistant’s daugher Julie. During the course of the investigation, Monk discovers that the dog’s death might be connected to a fatal house fire. His work is hampered, though, by the fact that he’s been displaced, due to his apartment building being fumigated. Though she knows it will be difficult, his assistant Natalie offers to take Monk into her home while they solve the murders.

Fans of the television show Monk will likely find this a good read. All of the characters we love are involved, the story seeming to take place not too long after Natalie becomes his assistant. It’s not directly tied to any episodes of the show, though, and is a brand new plot. It’s narrated by Natalie, and I enjoyed it as essentially a longer episode of the show. In a way, it seemed like a mash-up of 2 different episodes (“Mr. Monk Can’t See a Thing” and “Mr. Monk Stays in Bed”), but it’s unique enough to not just feel like a rip-off of one of those episodes.

The author does a pretty good job of capturing the feel of each of the characters with one execption–Monk himself. As someone who has seen the show in its entirety several times, I kept noticing things that just seemed very un-Monk-like. The most glaring was him holding a glass of milk, milk being high up on his list of fears. But he was also frankly a little too warm and tender toward Natalie and especially Julie. Though Monk can be kind, he is also often quite selfish, or at the very least, so wrapped up in his own issues that he doesn’t easily take others’ thoughts or feelings into consideration. He also called Julie “honey” at least once in the book, which just felt so wrong.

Overall, as a way to get more Monk in my life, the book was fun to listen to. The narrator was pretty good with the voices–I especially liked her Stottlemeyer. However, her depiction of Monk left a lot to be desired. I just kept putting it into Tony Shaloub’s voice as I listened. I’ll definitely keep reading this series.

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If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!