Rating:  Summary: Not quite up to a very high standard Review: Is he starting to slip? I read "Sick Puppy" with great enjoyment, but it wasn't the absolute gas that "Stormy Weather" and "Lucky You" were. For one thing, the villains in this book were not as equisitely dumb-and-violent as Bode, Chub and Shiner in "Lucky You". For another thing, Skink came out of this woods in this one, and for me, at least, it didn't really work -- can you really suppose for one minute that a man who was once governor and then disappeared completely would be able to enter the governor's residence completely unnoticed, even if he had changed a whole, whole lot? And finally, the story didn't roar along at quite the same pace as I've come to expect from Carl Hiaasen's books. Again -- I read it with pleasure, and I will pre-order the next one as soon as it comes up on Amazon, but ...
Rating:  Summary: Sick Puppy Review: This is a great book! It's cleverly written and keeps you entertained from cover to cover. Hiaasen has a way of giving the "bad guys" exactly what they deserve.
Rating:  Summary: Another Great Book by Hiaasen! Review: I am a native of Tampa and have read all of these greatbooks. I laugh and I cry thinking of the honesty of the true"rape" of Florida that has taken place in my lifetime. Mybeaches are no longer what they were when I was in my teens (60's). For any new reader of Hiaasen, read some of the other characters he has created. One of my favorites is Dr. Goosefu..er on the golf course! Or the Disney World caper! Keep creating and writing Mr. Hiaasen! You are the best!
Rating:  Summary: A great light and twisted read Review: Sick Puppy was my first, but not last Hiaasen read. This is a quick deserved laugh. While reading late at night, my outbursts of laughter led my cat to a more comfortable place than my shaking lap. Eco-terorrists, lobbyists, endangered species, and a dopey labrador are the hosts of a humorous adventure you want to join.
Rating:  Summary: Sane Puppy, Sick Surroundings Review: Since Tourist Season, Hiaasen's books have reminded me of aerobatic flying in the most satisfying way...you expect a wild ride, but like any force of nature, he manages to throw new stomach-twitching high-lows that you didn't think were waiting for you. What's rewarding in a more aching way is rediscovering that you can still share his subtext of outrage at social and political drifts that we've come to take for granted...from ravaged lands we've stolen from our children to please greedy developers to the hearts of Russian women who will not only sell their bodies for sex, but deliver them to an operating table for hilarious yet cruelly-disfiguring cosmetic surgery. It's good to read a master at the top of his game, but it's even better to heed his alerts to a culture almost lost to the creeping evil of individual self-absorption.
Rating:  Summary: Any nature lover can relate Review: I enjoyed it. The best parts were when the author got inside McGuinn (Boodle's) head and spoke as a black lab would, it was very clever and funny. The environmental message was a little heavy-handed, but I am okay with that! I'd recommend this read to anyone who loves dogs and appreciates nature!
Rating:  Summary: Very good, but not GREAT, Hiaasen Review: Carl Hiaasen is back thank God, and so is Skink. That's good news for those of us who will only visit Florida through these novels. True, the book isn't up to Lucky You or Strip Tease, but then there isn't much that is. Twilly Spree is another interesting addition to the Hiaasen gallery of weirdos, but he does seem to overreact to some of the relatively minor infractions of ecological civility he witnesses. This makes him seem unsympathetic at times. Palmer Stoat, however, is a great character, and just a little above the road kill Skink eats in social value. All in all a good read, but not as laugh out loud funny as some of Hiaasen's earlier books. I recommend it, with reservations. (For what it's worth, my partner, also a Hiaasen fan, liked it better than Lucky You.)
Rating:  Summary: Couldn't Put it down! Review: I finally got a book I could sink my teeth into from the start. I felt like the characters were right there- stench and all!
Rating:  Summary: Ugh! Review: Is it just me or was the humor in this book particularly sadistic? Giving Hiaasen the benefit of the doubt on that point (I'm not particularly fond of the gored-by-a-rhino-horn-as-humor genre), I'm having trouble finding a single redeeming quality in this book. Good muckraking is above all realistic. I grew up in Florida. Developers there (anywhere?) aren't known for their commitment to environmental preservation, but this book just reeks of knee-jerk fanaticism. There's as much subtlety here as being hit in the head with a hammer. I couldn't even work up a tear for all the poor little frogs he bulldozed.
Rating:  Summary: Developers, lobbyists........and other greedy low-lifes Review: Another hilarious peek into the mass-paving of Florida by Hiaasen. This time Hiaasen griefs on lobbyists, pols, land developers, "big-game" hunters, and gold-digging wannabe's. The centerpiece of this one is Twilly Spree, a trust-fund eco-terrorist who targets a self-important litterbug state lobbyist. Before Hiaasen puts a wrap on this far-fetched tale, he manages to lay waste to the seemy world of backroom political favoritism & greedy resort development. Skink, the former governor of Florida and current hermit/ecological antagonist/road-kill connoisseur, plays a large role again. Get ready to laugh out loud.
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