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3.47 AVERAGE
3.47 AVERAGE
Hiaasen can accomplish a complex and moving plot in a very short amount of pages, which is a real talent considering nothing suffers for it. The characters are drawn out, they change, and each chapter is a scene instead of an explanation. I really enjoyed the book--fun, quick, surprisingly adult, "Nature Girl" was a read well worth it. I'd recommend it for anyone wanting to get over a slump of mediocre novels.
Oh, this was so not for me. This was chosen by my new book club and is not my usual preference. I can see why some people adore these types of books but, for me, the situations were just too convoluted and the characters ranged from absurd to disgusting. I get that, I guess it was supposed to be funny, but I simply didn't see the humor in it.
Cute- light and wacky. I'm not in a rush to pick up another Hiassen book, but I'll give him another try. I might read his newest YA book Scat to my class...has anyone read it?
I really loved this! Carl Hiaasen crafts a hilarious romp through the Everglades. The characters are hilarious and the situations more so. Yes, the plot is ludicrous but its so off the wall that its fantastic. I am really looking forward to reading more by Hiaasen.
I saw this on the library shelf billed as a mystery novel, which is not my normal genre, but I thought about branching out. I had read Hiaasen's YA novels years ago and remembered really loving them, so I was looking forward to a revisit of an author I liked, and from what I remember about Hoot and Flush, 'mystery' sounded pretty plausible and fun.
This is not a mystery.
It's also lacking basically all the charm that the YA books had.
It *is* a convalescence of hijinks, outrageously flawed characters, poorly-executed plans, consequences, and good intentions run amok. Which is typically a great formula for a funny novel. If you are hoping for something that really delivers on that, I recommend skipping this book and heading for a Terry Pratchett novel instead.
I wanted to enjoy a funny plot, sincere characters, learn a little about Florida nature, solve some sort of little mystery, enjoy the adventure and hijinks... the things I loved about Hiaasen's YA novels.
Instead I got relatively little opportunity to glean fun things about the nature in the setting (biggest takeaway? There's a place called Ten Thousand Islands in Florida, and it's Seminole country. Good stuff, but I wanted more.), zero mystery, little suspense, and characters so misguided they are difficult to believe. The plot is basically a chaotic conundrum of Florida Man type characters, which would be great content to mine from, except everyone is simplified to essentially one base motive. And for nearly all of the characters who are men, their willingness to be distracted from other critical moments by sex (if their main goal is not already sex) is ridiculous. The "I can only think from my pants, I have no brain" clause was used over and over, for character after character, and it got pretty tiring after a while. The lack of much variety in characters and motives was a pretty big damper for me.
So why did I finish it? I think I was hoping for at least some of the morally interesting characters to come out with an ending fit for their intentions and choices. I think that happened for a few cases, but unfortunately just a few. Overall the book was okay. Not one I'd ever recommend, and probably enough to keep me off Hiaasen's non-YA novels from here out.
This is not a mystery.
It's also lacking basically all the charm that the YA books had.
It *is* a convalescence of hijinks, outrageously flawed characters, poorly-executed plans, consequences, and good intentions run amok. Which is typically a great formula for a funny novel. If you are hoping for something that really delivers on that, I recommend skipping this book and heading for a Terry Pratchett novel instead.
I wanted to enjoy a funny plot, sincere characters, learn a little about Florida nature, solve some sort of little mystery, enjoy the adventure and hijinks... the things I loved about Hiaasen's YA novels.
Instead I got relatively little opportunity to glean fun things about the nature in the setting (biggest takeaway? There's a place called Ten Thousand Islands in Florida, and it's Seminole country. Good stuff, but I wanted more.), zero mystery, little suspense, and characters so misguided they are difficult to believe. The plot is basically a chaotic conundrum of Florida Man type characters, which would be great content to mine from, except everyone is simplified to essentially one base motive. And for nearly all of the characters who are men, their willingness to be distracted from other critical moments by sex (if their main goal is not already sex) is ridiculous. The "I can only think from my pants, I have no brain" clause was used over and over, for character after character, and it got pretty tiring after a while. The lack of much variety in characters and motives was a pretty big damper for me.
So why did I finish it? I think I was hoping for at least some of the morally interesting characters to come out with an ending fit for their intentions and choices. I think that happened for a few cases, but unfortunately just a few. Overall the book was okay. Not one I'd ever recommend, and probably enough to keep me off Hiaasen's non-YA novels from here out.
I am always amazed at how authors do it! So many different story lines converge to the climax of this Florida adventure. The crazy lady/mom, her son, and ex-husband live in a small Gulf coast town where she hatches a plot to get back at the telemarketer who loses his temper with her retort to his call. She brings him and his mistress for an outing in the Thousand Islands, where a local Native American has decided to escape from a bad situation. Meanwhile she has acquired a stalker who follows her to an island, AND, the Seminole has accidentally kidnapped a college coed. Not to mention the private detective who is being paid by the telemarketer's wife, and a religious cult. How does it fit together? Amazingly well.
This story was pure chaos and I loved every minute of it. Every character was a mess in their own way which lended to such a crazy story.
I just love Hiaasen’s books. I’ve read almost all of them and I get quite excited when I hear about his next one coming out. Some are better than others and this one is pretty darn good. But regardless, his stories are always filled with plenty of humor and excitement, though not without losing sight of its roots as a mystery. This time, the “mystery” part deals with just one aspect of the story…Hiaasen’s stories are also usually chocked filled with many characters and many different subplots. The “mystery” in this case is the death of a tourist and a Native American who covers it up. The Indian did not kill the man, but he didn’t exactly go to the police either. I know – doesn’t sound like much of a mystery. But, they rarely are in Hiaasen’s novels. The mysteries (or lack there of) are similar to what director [b:Alfred Hitchcock|2014794|The Thirty-nine Steps.|John Buchan|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JYVWNH8DL._SL75_.jpg|2422487] used to call “the MacGuffin,” which Hitchcock described as a mechanical element that serves as some sort of motivation. The mystery pushes the story along…who will find the body?….will the Indian be accused?…etc. But, the core of the book is the characters, most of whom have NOTHING to do with the mystery at the beginning of the book. As the book goes on, each of the subplots edge closer and closer to uncovering the mystery. But, the talent of Hiaasen shines since the mystery is not “solved” until all of the subplots converge.
Hiaasen does "wacky Florida denizens" better than anybody, although I don't know that the competition is particularly fierce. Here again, with characters named Honey and Boyd, he scrambles a bunch of marginal people in a blender of a plot involving kayaks, native American history and telemarketing, and manages to be pretty funny. If you like Hiaasen, it's pure Hiaasen.
