Operation Dimwit

March 1, 2020
Penelope Lemon deals with some unusual problems at the trailer park. A sequel to Penelope Lemon: Game On (2018) finds Majors' plucky heroine still struggling to remain in the middle class, now working as a receptionist at Rolling Acres Estates, where the property owner is a kleptomaniac and also masturbates daily in the restroom attached to Penelope's office. Penelope and her boss, Missy, have noticed things disappearing from their desks, and they're sure Dewitt, the owner, is taking them. " 'Listen, ' Missy said, popping off the couch like a submerged pool toy breaking the surface. 'We're going up there and finding our stuff. He's probably eaten the candy and the gum. But those socks of yours? They're hanging in a Hello Kitty frame in the sex dungeon beneath his trailer.' " While her son, Theo, is off at camp, Penelope expects to "live for two weeks as an unfettered badass single gal, as often depicted on television shows set in New York City," but the realities of life in the backwater burg of Hillsboro, Virginia, will take things in a rather different direction. Majors' arch delivery makes the book amusing sentence by sentence, but this time the plot is a bit too silly to be resonant. One storyline revolves around a bidet and an aging online suitor named Fitzwilliam Darcy; a second deploys a personalized green-and-orange dildo and a rampaging squad of skunks. A more promising thread set at the gym, where Penelope runs into her ex-husband's not-very-nice new girlfriend, lies about her athletic abilities, and gets asked out by a workout warrior, is set up but not sufficiently pursued. Perhaps the difference between the original book and this sequel is that the first deals with the absurdities of modern life and the second with the absurdities of, well, the absurd. Not as funny as the first book, but if there's a third, we'd give it a chance.

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February 1, 2020
In this sequel to Penelope Lemon (2018), Majors returns to his titular heroine and her adventures as a single mother. Penelope still works as the receptionist at the Rolling Acres trailer community and rarely goes a day without involving herself in the high jinks of her boss, Missy. As of late, Penelope and Missy have noticed some of their small belongings disappearing. Both suspect DeWitt, more often referred to as Dimwit. Dimwit lives and works at Rolling Acres and maintains a tight daily routine of pleasuring himself in their office bathroom. Missy and Penelope are sure that Dimwit has been swiping their lip glosses, their socks, and their candy, but it's when Penelope's engraved dildo goes missing that the pair can no longer avoid confrontation with the suspected criminal. Their vigilante justice operation is thwarted by a gang of belligerent skunks, and distracted by a series of oddball suitors vying for Penelope's attention. This sequel has all the fun of its predecessor, focused on the loyal and unwavering friendship between two unstoppable southern women.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)