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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:
 First 1/3 Worth Reading November 22, 2007
This is about the forth or fifth Hiaasen book I read and I've never seen what all the fuss is about. I keep trying again because I like funny mysteries even though I didn't find any of the author's others all that good. But Hope springs erernal. I kept hoping for a good one eventually. For the first 100 pages of Nature Girl it finally all seemed to fall into place. The characters are funny and the plot draws you in. Then in the second 100 pages I found I was on a treadmill. Three or four groups of characters were trapped on an island in SW Florida and the members kept spining off and forming with other the other groups again and again. The same situations kept reappearing. I gave up before page 200 and read the last ten pages. All the good guys lived happily ever after and the bad guys got their just desserts. Good for them. The author keeps force feeding his beliefs into the plot. Can we all sign an agreement that we know the author believes that: companies are evil, white men are stupid, white women are stupid too but some have good intentions, Native Americans are spiritual and Deep, Christians are frauds; building all the houses in Forida (except Hiaasen's mansion) have raped the land, and Republicans are even more evil than big companies. These liberial shibboleths get shoehorned in at random throughout the text. Give it a rest.
Less then Carl Hiassen's best November 17, 2007
Try some of his other titles. He is edgy sarcastic humor at its best just not this book which I found to be readable but not great.
 Another bunch of hilarious wackos from Hiaasen November 17, 2007
Carl Hiaasen does it again - a hilarious tale of wacky goings-on and wackier characters in that endless source of human craziness that is South Florida.
The plot is far too convoluted to summarize, though I see some braver souls than I have had a go. But to give you an idea of the ethos, the skanky guy (who comes to a bad end, as they usually do in Hiaasen's books) is a nasty lecher who has suffered a freak accident and a surgical repair mixup after losing fingers. As young Fry reports "... the lights went out in the middle of the operation - anyhow, it was a major cluster. Somehow Mr. Piejack ends up with his pinkie sewn to his thumb stump, and his thumb stitched to the nub of his index finger. I don't remember exactly..."
Honey [Fry's mom] whistled softly. " I guess he'll be selling his piano."
This character had already been described by Mom as:
"You remember Aunt Rachel's Chihuahua? Yum-Yum Boy?"
"The one that got killed, right? Trying to hump a racoon."
"Yeah, well, that's what Mr. Piejack is like," Honey said, "only bigger."
The mom, incidentally, has a mild tendency to hallucinations and consequent unpredictable behavior. However, she can be tenacious...the whole episode of tracking down the real-estate telemarketer who annoyed her and calling HIM to sell a fake vacation that will let her get him where she can verbally blast him, is a tour de force...
Then there's Sammy Tigertail, the half-Seminole with a vague dream of living in the wild like his ancestors, except that having been raised in "a middle-class subdivision in Broward County" by his white father, he finds he is seriously lacking in wilderness crafts, when stuck on an island in the swamps.
Throw into the mix a seedy private eye whom the telemarketer's wife Lily has charged with documenting his infidelities: his best evidence is a picture of the guilty couple at a deli, described thus:
"Is she actually blowing him?" Lily Shreave asked.
"That would be my expert opinion."
"And what in hell is HE eating?"
"Turkey and salami on a French roll with pickles, shredded onions, no lettuce."
Ah, the mind boggles. That's Carl's specialty - the awesomely credibly zaniness that causes you to remember what a mixed-up bunch we poor humans are.
Enjoy...and quietly also take in the message that's gently woven into the story, about Carl's love of all that's lovely in nature and his detestation of those who corrupt and pollute. Except that in this book there isn't an evil developer trying to ruin unspoiled coast: in many ways the basic goodness of people like Honey Santana, and her right to live without being assaulted, replaces the evangelism for the natural world, though the driving impulse is the same. There's something unusually warm-hearted (for Carl's books) about how all that turns out.
Nature Girl September 27, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Ahhh, that perfect sizzle of steak done well I sit down, pick up my fork and knife and am ready to cut into a little slice of heaven, and the phone rings. Fish, or cut bait? Answer the phone, or get chastised for screening my calls? My steak will have to wait. I answer and a friendly, professional voice promises me a fast way to get out of debt, sell me magazines, or a great piece of real estate in Florida. Arrrgh, my steak is now cold and congealing upon my plate.
Telemarketers, I have always fantasized about tracking down one of these telemarketing creeps and turning the tables -- phoning his house every night at dinner, interrupting a nice, hot soak in the tub, or having him pick up the phone with hands covered in oven mitts. The main character in Carl Hiaason's new novel Nature Girl does just that.
Honey, the "Nature Girl" of the title, has just started dinner when-you guessed it-a telemarketer and interrupts her meal. Honey is a nice girl with some problems. She hears two songs in her head at once-like Nine Inch Nails, and Nat King Cole-and has decided that there's a decided lack of courtesy in the world. Old fans and newcomers alike will delight in Hiaason's 11th novel, another entertaining Florida romp.
Honey lures the unsuspecting telemarketer to the "Ten Thousand Islands" area of Florida with the promise of an Everglade inspired "eco-tour" trap, to lecture him on ethics and common decency. As with all of Hiaason's fiction there is a cast of extreme and zany characters. There's a sex-starved fishmonger: a half-breed, blue-eyed Seminole: a private investigator in search of the "footage of a lifetime": a co-ed wanna-be-hostage, and more.
This is classic Hiaason, so if you are an avid reader, you've seen this before. Even so, it's an enjoyable read. There's an eclectic cast of characters, witty dialogue and humorous phrasing. A nice addition is his strong character development of a young adult character. Hiaason has forayed into children's books with Hoot, a winner of a Newberry award, and Flush, and has obviously become comfortable with creating strong children characters. Hiaason's next book is rumored to be another children's book. Perhaps, a sequel to the award winning, Hoot-I have a feeling that he wanted Nature Girl to be that book, but his publisher demanded another adult novel.
Hiaason definetly sticks to the adage "write what you know". His fiction mirrors his concerns as a journalist and a native of Florida. His novels have been classified as "environmental thrillers" and are usually found on the crime fiction shelves in bookshops, though they can just as well be read as mainstream reflections of every day life. If you love Hiassen, you may want to check out Christopher Moore, who has been called "the unhinged Hiaason" and a man that Hiasson calls "the sickest man I know- in the best possible way."
Me? I'll be looking forward to both Hiaason's next novel as well as Christopher Moore's new book which is being published just in time for Valentine's Day, You Suck: a Love Story which is a sequal to Blood Sucking Fiends. Well, I have to vamoose. I hear the phone ringing.....
Author of "Hobo Finds A Home" and editor of "Of A Predatory Heart"
 Hiaasen never disappoints August 30, 2007
Another story from the master of the "South Florida Wacko Genre" is a fun read. The only reason it does not get 5 stars is that it is not as rich as Basket Case or Stormy Weather, both masterpieces from Carl Hiaasen. In this one, Honey Santana takes revenge on an irritating telemarketer who calls, when else? at suppertime! She leads him into the swampy everglades where predictable hilarious plot twists develop. In all of Hiaasens novels you can depend on: Engaging flawed protagonists who love the unspoiled beauty of Florida, and moronic spoilers of the environment, and always: Skink the righteous hermit who is the conscience of all that is uncorruptible.
Plenty of laughs.
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Wildlife, nature and the Environment
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