heavy-hearted reading vs. light-hearted cheer-me-ups

I recently read Barbara Kingsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible".

It's not the sort of thing I usually read, and while I found it interesting and somewhat educational, I also found myself feeling down and heavy-hearted by the end of the story.

So now I'm reading something much lighter and funnier.
Janet Evanovich's "Stephanie Plum, Bounty Hunter" series.

They have titles such as: One For The Money; Two For The Dough; Lean Mean Thirteen, etc
There are eighteen books in the series so far, and I'm currently reading Sizzling Sixteen, with Smokin' Seventeen waiting in line. I haven't yet bought Explosive Eighteen.

The main character is Stephanie who works as a bounty hunter tracking down FTA's for her cousin Vinnie who has a bail bonds business, owned by his father Harry the hammer. She blackmailed Vinnie into giving her the job when she was out of work and flat broke. Stephanie's mother would prefer to see her working at the Button Factory (a nice safe job), married and raising a bunch of babies.
Another character is Lula, a reformed prostitute who does the filing for the business in between helping Stephanie with the tracking down and capturing those petty criminals who have skipped out on their court hearing date. (FTA = Failed To Appear), and shopping for clothes and/or doughnuts.
Other characters include Joe Morelli a plainclothes policeman and Stephanie's boyfriend;  Ranger, who part owns and runs a security firm, Rangeman, and is also a man in Stephanie's life;  Grandma Mazur, Stephanie's grandma, who now lives with her (Steph's) parents, since Grandpa Mazur joined that big gravy train in the sky, and Grandma Bella, who is Joe's grandma and insists on giving people the "evil eye".

These books make me laugh. There is nothing at all heavy hearted about them, they are the sort of thing I turn to when I need to just veg out, or raise my spirits a little.
In the beginning, I loved the Grandma Mazur character, now I love everyone in the stories. Even the bumbling petty criminals get me laughing.