It´s 20 past 3 pm, in a pretty hot autumn afternoon.
I am sitting in front of my PC, reading the posts here, also some fanfic, looking around the Monk & Friends board, researching some things for my first shot in fanfic, thinking I should get my buttocks upstairs and do some ironing, when someone rings my doorbell.
It a mailman, and he is carrying a small carbon package. As soon as I see it, I jump to the door like a teenager receiving a boyfriend´s so waited visit. Really, I ´do not walk to the door, I was hopping up all the way to the door.
IT´S MY FIRST MONK BOOK!!!! YEEEEEEEEEEEY!
Ok, cool yourself, you will scare the mailman away!!
then, I got the mail, but couldn´t avoid the smile. I was talking to him in a very strange voice, because I could not stop smiling!
He dosen´t speak English, I supposed, so I started: UHUUUU!!! It´s here, I got it!! yeah, I got it!!!!
when I was hopping back inside my house.
Jeeeee....should be an awkward vision for the guy........

ANYWAY ( Oh, I am so excited!!!!) I ordered it two weeks ago and now it is here, in front of me!!!
And I just saw the first two sentences "My Name is Natalie Teeger. I´m an honest-to-goodness soccer mom and proud of it."

I AM SO PROUD OF IT!!!

I choose Mr Monk and the Two Assistants, for my start. And, friends, sorry, but I have to say goodbye now.
It´s half past three pm, I will start it! Just stopping a bit to take a picture:




Sorry starting a new topic on this, sory abt the extreme joy I am experiencing now, sorry abt my wacko smile ( I am a really serious mom/wife ) but I am realllllllllly happy, and wanna share it with you!


Hugs
Mi

Happy Reading, micheleNasser. I'm sure you'll love it.

Maybe this lady is smart enough to realise Sharona is the better assistant by far >>

Good Choice!!!

This was also the first book (( and only >> Im in Ireland)) I read and I loved it!!
Im not ashamed to admit i cried twice when i read it, and i wont say when as i dont want to wreck the story on you, but it involved Sharona!!



Enjoy!!

x

Yippee Skippee!!! You've got yourself a book!

I think we all understand how you feel! I am in the middle of reading the same one for the 2nd time.
Tell us what you think. Oh and the mailman will probably recover. If not, make him some cookies - that helps.

Yes! He does allow the two of them to work it out in a friendly and mature manner. If they can both handle Monk they can get along with each other! And when you think about it, they have a great deal in common.

One thing I really liked about "Blue Flu" is that Natalie meets the assisstants of three other "put out to pasture" expert detectives. Each of them is dysfunctional in some way and Natalie enjoys the comraderie of the assistants. Nobody else understands like they do!

Natalie and Sharona can sympathize with each other and observe the differences in the way they treat Adrian/Mr. Monk. It is very interesting to see Goldberg explore this.

Michele,

You made my day!

Lee

Sorry, Sir, but I think you got it wrong ....YOU made my day!
thanx

Michele

Glad you decided to grab up a Monk book...I read all of them! My favorite is Mr Monk goes to Hawaii! I kept laughing throughout the whole book!

Enjoy!

My favorite is Firehouse, so many sweet and touching moments in it, Monk moments, that I adore. I also like the episode Can't See a Thing, that was taken from this book. It's one of my favorite episodes and also has one of my favorite lines in it: "Natalie, are you flying?"

I share your joy! I get that same 'wacko' smile when I get my books, too. Or anything 'Monk' for that matter.

Enjoy.

B

ROFLOL. What a great conversation!

Ok, finished it!

My impressions: it´s an easy and nice reading, and I simply loved it! I couldn´t stop reading it!
I am not sure if it was because I was expecting it so much or what, but I just ignored my family and took a deep dive into it. Breathholding dive.

No, really, I am not this mean woman (...), I wasn´t able to read it yesterday, I had to do some "housemaid things" ( Gee, I wish I had used special gloves to deal with the bleach... a long time fan still didn´t learn it from the Master Monk yet??? shame on me...) and I was only able to get back to it after 10PM. And I did. And didn´t stop until I´ve finished it!

Very good reading 'stimulum' right before going to bed. I was so stimulated I couldn´t sleep in two maybe three hours.... Mr Monk, Natalie and Sharona were playing games on my mind, jumping from book universe to tv universe and back on. I was reviewing the book and enjoying again every part of it until its almost total exhaustion. Almost total, c´mon, I have to have something up there to play with it during my wondering times.....

Mr Monk at book sounds a bit different to me from the Tv one. At the book, he´s way more selfish, although his phobias and reactions to it are sometimes bigger and more funny represented there than at the Tv show. Maybe it is because I was playing it the way I though it will be what I wanted to see it being played??? That´s the magic of the reading/writing!!!!

ok, coming back: selfish. I do not want to see Mr Monk getting along with Natalie at the book (AT THE BOOK!). That Monk is colder, too egocentric, and perfect! Perfect to be there, allowing the reader deal with him the way the reader wants to. Opposite to Monk on Tv, this one I really want to get along with Natalie (sorry, I'm a shipper, you know...). So, Monk characters are so different at this two clear distinguished universes, that makes the reading a delightful revelation of a brilliant detective novel.

So Natalie, then. I loved to read it through Natalie´s view. I could figure her character out a bit clearly, and I do not think it is too distant from the one interpreted by Traylor Howard. It is nice to share her view on Sharona, on Monk and on her inner fears and indecisions. I really loved to see Monk through it.
And at the begining, I did not like to face Sharona again. I took Natalie´s side, and I was really mad at Monk playing with Natalie´s feelings like that, even not being aware on what he was doing ( wasn´t he really not aware?...). I thing I took Natalie´s side and didn´t leave it until the last dialogue. Nice interaction beween the two 'gals', nice development of their relation, and nice conclusion.

The way Mr Golberg deals with the mistery, with Monk´s "here´s what happened", and the plot development is great, it is really a catchy reading, even for the ones that do not know Monk from Tv. He got me hooked from the very first words, and I really enjoyed stepping into his universe.

Now, just making myself a bit more clear: I like Monk at the book, and I also like Monk at TV. The thing is that I think Tony does such a nice job, that I feel his Monk a bit less selfish and more caring about Natalie´s feelings. He is very funny performing Monk things, and Tony seems to be such a nice guy that this is naturally transferred to his character, so I tend to like this Monk better. I love to see Tony performing it.
Anyway, it was such a nice experience that I can´t help myself waiting here to get my second book! It will be Mr Golberg´s first one, I want to be able to follow the written development of the characters.

Uff! Sorry for this looong post, but I could not make it shorter. Actually I was controlling myself not to make it longer!!!!

hugs
Mi

Hi, everybody!

I´m a new here, and this is my first message. I hadn´t any ideas for new topic, so I began here. I´m from Finland, so sorry if I make some mistakes with my writing.

I have felt exactly like you, micheleNasser, when I got my first book. It was a couple of months ago. The bookshop has ordered it from USA. ´cause we dont have them here. I tried so hard to stop smiling like an idiot, when I got my book from a saleswoman, but I think I didn´t manage very well.

By the way, the book was The Firehouse and went coffee and started it at once. It was so sweet, imaginative and exciting! It was so nice idea put the story from Natalie´s view. Thank you, mr Goldberg! Now I got three of them, and if I´m lucky, I´ll get tomorrow the forth, mr Monk goes to Hawaii. Again, I cannot wait!

I was in a big shopping center when i saw an advertise in front of a bookstore and i could see the firehouse and the hawaii book on that advertise. I never heard it before that somebody wrote any Monk book. I was so happy, i walked in to the bookstore and i bought two of them. I started to read the hawaii book first, i was still in the car and i was just reading, reading and reading. When i arrived at home i almost finished the whole book, but it was just 1 hour and a half. This book is so fantastic and exciting. I already read this book, the firehouse and the blue flu, all of them are so good.
And now im waiting for the two assistants

P.S. My favorite is the firehouse
Mr. Goldberg, please keep writing such a wonderful books

It´s me again! I want answer you. I thougt also, that mr Monk was a bit different in the books than in TV. I guess, that it was a bit harsh from him to suggest, that they can divided him. I cannot imagine Tony´s Monk suggest such, but of course I cannot know it surely. And I think, that Sharona would get other job also, because she is a trained nurse. Yes, it would be interesting to see Sharona and Natalie together in tv, and how mr Monk would react. But it was so interesting to read, how they work together and how they became friends. It was better after all, than competition.

But now I must finish. Bye, bye!

Michele, I'm interested to know how you like Firehouse compared to the one you just finished. I found the portrayal of Monk in Firehouse to be more true to the Monk on tv. In fact, in my opinion, Mr Goldberg has moved farther and farther away from the tv Monk with each book he writes. In the last book, to me Adrian was almost a caricature of himself.

Ola, Raven!
The Two Assistants is my first Monk book. Curiously, I choose Firehouse to be my second, I already ordered it. Maybe next week I will have it here, hopefully it has already shipped, then I will for sure answer your question!

Kawasaki, tks for the enlightment!

hugs
Mi

Hello Adrianna 10! I have been to Finland, twice actuallly - although it was long ago. Such a beautiful country!
Welcome to the forum!

Thank you!

Really? Nice to hear. It would be interesting to hear, where you have been. I´m from Helsinki, the capital of Finland.

This seems very fine, very interesting forum, and all people here are very friendly.

But now I´m out of the topic, I´m afraid.

The Monk in the books and the Monk in the TV show aren't necessarily different...keep in mind, the MONK in the books is filtered through Natalie's POV...it's how *she* sees him. On TV, you get an "objective" view that you can interpret any way you like.

That's a good way to explain it. I never thought they were 'different' Monks, but I couldn't spot why it was they seemed different.

BTW, do you know if they had Sharona take a writing class in Mr Monk and the Girl Who Cried Wolf because they were planning to do the books from Shaorna's POV? Would you have written them?

They were not planning to do books -- from Sharona's POV or otherwise -- at that point in time. When I got the offer to do the MONK books, I came up with idea of doing them from Natalie's POV and Andy loved it. There's a long history of books about quirky detectives (Nero Wolfe, Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, etc.) being written first-person from the POV of their long-suffering sidekicks.

Tks, Bubba.

While I was reading this, my 5 years old son popped into the rom, saw your your signature and enthusiastically said: mom! it´s a Mercedes! And I am driving it!!!! - and made a huge smile on his face, pretending to be the smilley.....
ROFL!

Tks again, Bubba!

yes, I agree, Mr Goldberg is an excellent writer! As he mentioned before, because it´s Natalie´s POV, we get to see Mr Monk a bit more selfish then at the Tv. And after this comment, I rewatched some episodes, trying to play with this POV, and for my surprise, when I leave the love for Monk aside, I can definetely see his selfish side. Yep, the OCD is far more evident when we step back a while, and watch it without any "influenced mask"!
That´s great! Now I have to rewatch all episods again.... terrible!
Tks again, Mr Golberg!

(I am dying to get my second book! It was supposed to be here already!!! sigh....)

Hugs
Mi