Anyway:
Most ridiculous plot device: Nancy gets locked up/tied up/bound and gagged in some hidden place. Someone remembers where she could be at the last minute and saves her, or Nancy manages to get out of her bonds and lockpick/climb/wiggle her way out of captivity (the scenes where she gets herself out are more 'believable').
-Runner-Up: Nancy the hero, saves little kids, elderly people and helpless young women and her friends are usually the "supporting cast", going to get help, hauling someone ashore after Nancy rescues a drowning person, getting a blanket, etc. Sometimes they are even helpless, and are there just to praise Nancy.
Favorite from the girl gang (Nancy, Bess and George): Bess. Who couldn't love the carefree, snack-loving, girl who always came through for Nancy despite her fears?
Most classic recurring setting: Hidden passages, rooms or empty spaces. Also, wacky "ghosts" or ghostly objects that turn out to be a predictable hoax, of course.
Best cover: The Mystery of the 99 Steps. Fairly realistic and draws you in. Very mysterious.
Strangest cover: The Crooked Banister. It's a robotic, magenta drug trip. |:P
Favorite villain: Ada and Isabel Thompson from The Hidden Staircase. Two girls, actually...but they come as a pair. They aren't really "criminal-type" villains, but so bitchy to Nancy. They really wanted to start a catfight!
-Runner-up: Kitty Blair from The Clue of the Broken Locket
Most ridiculous part of series theme: Nancy lives in a small town and her father often works locally, but her father is practically famous all over the world.
-Runner-up: The girls usually run around solving mysteries in light cotton dresses. Um...isn't that kind of awkward when trying to get into dirty places or climb ladders, etc.?
Ten ways to tell you're reading a Nancy Drew book:
- A pathetic old lady needs to be saved.
- Her best friends, George and Bess, are ALWAYS able to join her on her mysteries.
- If Nancy isn't able to untie herself/escape/fight her way away from a captor, the police and/or any of the gang (Bess, George, Ned, Dave, Burt) are able to make an amazing rescue at the last minute.
- Clues just happen to come along at the right moment.
- Everyone good is good, everyone bad is bad...no gray line.
- The bad guys are usually rude, ugly, or unsophisticated (any or more of the previous).
- Nancy finds any number of secret tunnels, secret staircases or hidden walls if she is searching a building.
- If Nancy is mistaken for someone out for arrest, is falsely accused or on the verge of being ticketed for having stretched the law (in order to do her mystery work) she is let off when she just happens to mention her ever-famous father.
- Nancy seems to have an unlimited budget to go on vacation to solve mysteries, go overseas, etc.
- And you have the ever-amusing George and Bess!
More categories to be added over time as I finish books I haven't read and complete the series :)
