Rating: 
Summary: An entertaining and easy to read book.
Review: Hiaasen has another good book here. The book is revolves around Joe Wilder and his PR efforts for the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills theme park in the Florida Keys.As always there are unseemly characters abound. And Joe takes us through a rollercoaster ride of fun and games as he tries to bring down the man behind the carnage. The book is well written and easy to read. Parts of it had me laughing out load while I read, making my better half think I'm a little cuckoo! Over all I found this to be a very enjoyable and funny book.
Rating: 
Summary: Another formulaic entry by Hiaasen...
Review: Hiaasen is a very good writer who has somehow managed to write the same book over and over. While funny and full of quirky characters, his writing is formulaic and his plots recycled. Many of his books have similar plot points - reporter/photagrapher turned private eye who is still in love with his ex (and who is alternately hot/cold to him in return); bad guy lackeys who end up self-mutilating; ex lovers who are kidnapped by the bad guys and are left naked so they don't escape; giant sea creatures who are dangerous to most but who have a special relationship with the character who symbolizes the way Florida used to be, etc. Definitely read one of his books. If you like it, read others. If you don't mind spending money on what is essentially the same book over and over, buy them. Otherwise get them from the library and save yourself some money and frustration.
Rating: 
Summary: Best of Carl Hiaasen
Review: Hiassen makes Elmore Leonard look like a "regular guy". Hiaasen creates riotously funny characters, combined with environmentally sensitve issues. I've essentially made this book required reading for my office and have probably passed out 10 or more copies for circulation. This is a life changing experience. Your standards for selecting books will be changed forever. My brother actually had to take off work when I gave him 5 Hiassen novels as a gift. He read one a day. It doesn't get any better than this.
Rating:
Summary: South Florida page turner
Review: I am a fan of Carl Hiaasen's journalism, available on the Internet, but this is the only one of his novels I have read. I couldn't put it down, but I don't think I need to read any more. I would call it Elmore Leonard lite, the expected kinky characters, grungy milieu, off-color dialogue, and page-turning plot. Full of cartoon violence, the story calls for big-time suspension of disbelief. The main problem is that Hiaasen doesn't know how to end it. The last hundred or so pages are repetitive and aimless. My suggestion: read the first half (to get the point) and the last two or three chapters (to find out how it comes out).
Rating:
Summary: Wickedly funny!
Review: I can back that up with a quick example from the book. The main character's girlfriend works for a phone sex line, so every time he calls her it costs him $4.00! This has steroid addicted thugs, amorous dolphins, "endangered" species and more all wrapped up and served with wit and fun. A warning: Carl Hiaasen's books are addictive.
Rating:
Summary: A Rare Pleasure
Review: I find it's rare that a book actually gets me laughing out loud, waking my wife or causing odd glances from stray passers-by, but Native Tongue definitely qualifies. It's a great and intelligent thriller as well, which makes for a delightful, most unusual ride for the reader. [For what it's worth, personally, my other contenders for laugh-out-loud status that come quickly to mind include the entirely different and now rather obscure Three Men in a Boat (by Jerome K. Jerome) from Elizabethan England, Dave Barry at his better moments (parts of Dave Barry Does Japan for instance), and almost any P.G. Wodehouse (Wooster and Jeeves) chronicle. I'd be interested in other "laugh-out-loud" suggestions, specifically from those for whom the above suggestions resonate; I invite your e-mails on other contenders for what would perhaps be a mutual "l-o-l" list. -jp]
Rating:
Summary: It's as good as they say
Review: I had read many references to Carl Hiaasen and decided to give him try. I'm glad I did! I heartily recommend this book - especially for those of us in the stormy eye of real estate development juggernauts. With its "outside of the box" characters, "Native Tongue" is often riotously funny, reminiscent of Tom Robbins. Hiaasen has a cautionary but hopeful tale to tell of Paradise being lost, and he does so with flair and panache, without being "preachy." I look forward to reading "Team Rodent,"a non-fiction account of how he *really* feels about Disney.
Rating:
Summary: Still the best
Review: I have read every Hiaasen book since Double Whammy and although all have their merits, "Native Tongue" is still the funniest, with "Skin Tight" a close second. Having grown up in Homestead I was immediately captured by this one as it starts out on Card Sound Road where my Dad used to take my brother and me fishing. Hiaasen's description of the incident with Dickie the Dolphin and the Miami reporter, and the parade with the 'lude queen will literally have you laughing out loud no matter where you are. My wife kept asking me "what's so funny", then she read it and found out.
Rating:
Summary: Like Elmore Leonard, only better.
Review: I love Hiaasen-he's like Elmore Leonard on nitrous oxide (or maybe something a lot stronger), only better. All his comic mysteries are set in South Florida and most feature some of the same characters, including an insane former governor/Viet Nam vet known as Skink, who lives off roadkill in the Keys and his state-trooper bud, an angry but self-controlled African-American named Jim Tile. This novel, which I liked a lot better than Stormy Weather, concerns a Walt Disney Wannabe who's in the Federal Witness Protection Program, the burned-out PR flack who used to work for him, the flack's phone-sex goddess girlfriend, a couple petty thieves who can't seem to get anything right, and a grandmotherly "Green Peace"-type who's not afraid to shoot anybody in her way, even the FBI.
Rating:
Summary: Our author is his usual ascerbic, funny self!
Review: I love the way that Carl puts his dislike for progress and tourism right our there in print. I have read all of his books and think they are all irreverent, and sadly, mostly true ~~ with just a little literary license taken. Great read...very entertaining.
| 
