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| Nature Girl | 
| Manufacturer: Knopf
Category: EBooks
List Price: $9.95
Buy New: $7.96
You Save: $1.99 (20%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  154 reviews
Sales Rank: 5762
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
ASIN: B000MAH7OU
Publication Date: November 14, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
Crusaders of Lost Causes November 24, 2006
17 out of 24 found this review helpful
In Carl Hiaasen, Florida's swamps and scrub pines have found a formidable ally. Throughout his long career as a novelist and columnist for the Miami Herald, his original brand of cutting satire and black humor have ripped those who would defile Florida's primitive beauty, skewering at various times crooked politicians, greedy developers, televangelists, trophy bass fisherman, and even plastic surgeons. Hiaasen has established an entire genre followed by droves of wannabes writers rushing to cash in on Florida's unique assortment of red necks, snow birds, and criminals of Darwin Award winning caliber - on both sides of the law.
Regrettably, "Nature Girl" lacks the trademark Hiaasen sting - a mostly uninspired drama that makes one wonder if Florida's firebrand is losing his spark. The `nature girl' is Honey Santana, a late-thirty-ish single mom with a big heart and an eye for misguided crusades. This time around, the target of Hiaasen's wrath is Boyd Shreave, an unprincipled telemarketer from Dallas who makes the mistake of calling Honey during the revered dinner hour she spends with her 12-year-old son, Fry. Honey lures the unsuspecting Sheave and his bombshell mistress, Eugenie, into an Everglades eco-tour inspired trap, with no more motive than giving the feckless Shreave a lecture in ethics, morals, and common decency. As with all of Hiaasen's top-notch fiction, this one is accompanied by a zany supporting cast: the Private Investigator in search of the holy coital grail, a former boss lusting for Honey who ends up with a ludicrously rearranged hand for his efforts, the blue-eyed Seminole yearning for ancient native days of warrior pride and honor, and a spaced-out and sex-craved co-ed wanting to be a hostage. Problem is, while Hiaasen's wacky characters usually fit as naturally as octogenarian New Yorkers in a Delray Beach Olive Garden's early bird special, Nature Girl's crew feels forced and stretched just beyond credibility. And while Boyd Shreave is slimy enough, he lacks the raw despicability of Hiaasen's previous unwitting villains. Besides, with the recent Federal "don't call" program - the unusual federal government program that actually seems to have some success in delivering the desired results - it is more difficult than usual to root as enthusiastically for the telemarketer's predictable demise.
In summary, a lifeless effort that crawls through a tired pace not typical of the talented Hiaasen, making one wonder if Florida's seemingly endless stream of insanity is drying up as fast as the author's beloved Everglades.
 Pure Hiaasen November 22, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Carl Hiaasen, who pens a weekly column for The Miami Herald, certainly follows the adage "Write what you know." While he occasionally covers nationally significant events, Hiaasen generally confines his writings to the fertile territory that is the state of Florida. Readers of Hiaasen's columns know well his passions and viewpoints. His sarcastic commentaries often take aim at such topics as the medical profession, land developers, crooked politicians, gun aficionados, tobacco companies, madcap theme parks and the destruction of Florida's environment. But weekly newspaper pieces are not the end of Hiaasen's caustic observations --- they are only the beginning. In 10 novels written over a span of 20 years, Hiaasen has expanded upon all of these topics in hilarious tales that poke fun at every aspect of life in the Sunshine State.
NATURE GIRL is Hiaasen's 11th novel. While he skewers many familiar targets, there are a few new objects of ridicule for his skillful and entertaining writing. Hiaasen's Florida romps all share common traits: quirky plots, countless screwball characters and an irreverent style that creates laughter on every page. The prime target for his ire in NATURE GIRL is Boyd Shreave, a telemarketer pitching Florida real estate who places a sales call to Honey Santana, thereby setting in motion a chain of events familiar to any Hiaasen aficionado. Anyone who has experienced the pain of a telemarketing call interrupting a quiet and peaceful evening at home can identify with Santana's plot of revenge. She turns the tables on Shreave and lures the unsuspecting pitchman to Florida for a phony tour of nonexistent Florida property.
NATURE GIRL begins with an event not uncommon in a Hiaasen novel: someone dies and someone else tries to dispose of the body. Sammy Tigertail, a fugitive half-breed Seminole, takes a tourist out on his airboat. The tourist is frightened by a harmless water snake and dies of an apparent heart attack. Panic-stricken, Sammy decides to ditch the body somewhere in the Ten Thousand Islands area of Southeast Florida. The cast of characters, as often occurs in a Hiaasen novel, expands exponentially. Shreave has a wife intent on divorce, along with a girlfriend who accompanies Shreave on his ostensible Florida vacation. Eugenie Fonda once achieved fame as the girlfriend of a tabloid murderer.
While Santana is obsessed with her plot to destroy Shreave, she must also fend off the advances of a stalker known only to readers as Mr. Piejack and her drug-running former husband Perry. Add to the mix one Florida State co-ed who falls in love with Sammy Tigertail and a private investigator hired by Shreave's wife to follow him on his tryst with Eugenie, and the pieces to a puzzle that create a picture of hilarity are almost all in place.
Carl Hiaasen is a genius in creating mayhem on the pages of his novels. Characters move in all directions across Florida, and readers may often have difficulty keeping track of their various escapades. In the end, however, everything comes together in a typical Hiaasen conclusion. NATURE GIRL is pure Hiaasen, and his many readers once again will experience the joy of his humor and his easily recognized and human characters.
--- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman
Back On His Game November 22, 2006
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I am a huge Hiaasen fan. Even his stale efforts are worth reading. It's good, no great, to see him back in the groove after a few unsteady efforts. The characters are unforgetable and it is laugh out loud funny in many, many, places. A keeper and thank you Carl, for getting back on your game.
Predictable November 19, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I've read all of Mr. Hiaasen's books. Some of the early ones more than once. I've enjoyed all of them. But it seems to me in Nature Girl I've encountered essentially the same characters and similar situations as in some of his earlier work. I hope Mr. Hiaasen isn't running out of original stories.
 HIAASEN HAS NO PEERS November 19, 2006
21 out of 23 found this review helpful
What's not to like about a book by Carl Hiaasen? His prose is tough yet tender, his satire bites then provokes smiles, he's totally original, his offbeat characters are over the top, and, thanks to him, the State of Florida is revealed in all its steamy, seamy splendor. He won me with "Skinny Dip" and I haven't looked back since.
With "Nature Girl" we meet Boyd Shreave who is employed by Relentless, Inc. where he makes his living as a telemarketer. His mistress, Eugenie Fonda "who claimed a murky connection to the famous acting family" is in the cubicle next to him, a script is in front of him, and he has an assumed name for calling purposes - Boyd Eisenhower. He'll rue the day that he ever dialed Honey Santana's number.
Honey is a woman on a mission fueled by a rabid desire to rid the world of many adversities that have visited her, one of them being dinnertime sales calls. Her 12-year-old son, Fry, alternates between believing her to be tetched or the most wonderful Mom in the world. Her brother, Richard, is well aware that his sister "sometimes reacted to ordinary situations in unique ways." Nonetheless, he locates Boyd for her. Her plan? To sell him something he can't afford.
Sure enough, Boyd takes the bait and soon Honey is escorting the telemarketer and his reluctant mistress on a kayak tour through the wilds of Ten Thousand Islands. She just intends to teach them a lesson or three. What she hadn't counted on is Piejack, her boss at the fish market, following her. Piejack is the kind of guy who thinks sexual harassment in the workplace is acceptable, and the object of his attention is Honey.
Now, read carefully (this is Hiaasen) - Piejack is being followed by Honey's ex, Perry, and Fry. Dismal Key is a landing place for this parade, and it's there they find Sammy Tigertail, a half-white, half-Seminole former alligator wrestler who tried his hand at doing airboat tours. But, when his first customer died on board, he told his uncle "he wasn't spiritually equipped to deal with tourists." Precisely what he is equipped for is subject for conjecture.
Hiaasen's cast of crazy characters garner laughs aplenty. His meandering plot is a playful perplexity, and every page is a reminder that this author has no peers. Long may he scribe!
- Gail Cooke
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