Rating: 
Summary: Another wonderful Hiaasen romp on the wacky side
Review: Carl Hiaasen is the author of some of the most engaging, delightful, twisted, hilarious stuff in print. Lucky You is one of his best, the story of greed, grace, low-life types (picture this: a glue-sniffing jerk with a crab claw hanging from his infected hand as he peers at you from the leg holes of a pair of orange Hooters short shorts that he's pulled over his head), religious fanatics, skinhead survivalists ' all focused on skullduggery surrounding two winning Florida lottery tickets, each worth $14 million. There's always a lot going on in Hiassen's books, sub-plot leading to yet another sub-plot, but somehow he manages to wrap them all up by the end.
Great read.
Rating: 
Summary: Lotto Schmotto
Review: How lucky can one girl get? While JoLayne Lucks may have won $14 million, someone else did too. Two rednecks, Chub & Bode, also had a winning ticket but decided they shouldn't have to share. They beat her up and steal her ticket and the rest of the book is JoLayne trying to get it back. While the story plot is good, the characters are not too believable. For instance, Chub & Bode are smart enough to find JoLayne and cover up some of the evidence that she won (getting a store clerk to trade the video surveillance tape with a blank one) however they are not smart enough to stop using her credit card, thereby allowing JoLayne and her new found reporter from tracing them. Additionally, the Hooters waitress that was kidnapped by the video store clerk for Chub went along a little too willingly. No fight, no nothing. While the book has some funny parts (that's Major Chub to you), there are better books by Carl Haissen to read that have good strong characters (Strip Tease, Double Whammy) that leave you saying "This one reminds me of..."
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: I found this book to be very good, considering one of the only reason I read it was because two of my friends tried it, and did not like it. It was a wee bit excessive with the swearing (about five swears per page, including the f-, s-, b-, and d- word), but the plot made up for that. By the end of the book, all the loose ends had been tied up, so one is not left hanging. The only problem would be if the reader was sensitive to racist words. Of course, the two "bad guys" are white supremacists and they use racist words, so it must be done to get the correct redneck vibe. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good fiction novel, and does not mind a handful of cussing. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Lotto Schmotto
Review: How lucky can one girl get? While JoLayne Lucks may have won $14 million, someone else did too. Two rednecks, Chub & Bode, also had a winning ticket but decided they shouldn't have to share. They beat her up and steal her ticket and the rest of the book is JoLayne trying to get it back. While the story plot is good, the characters are not too believable. For instance, Chub & Bode are smart enough to find JoLayne and cover up some of the evidence that she won (getting a store clerk to trade the video surveillance tape with a blank one) however they are not smart enough to stop using her credit card, thereby allowing JoLayne and her new found reporter from tracing them. Additionally, the Hooters waitress that was kidnapped by the video store clerk for Chub went along a little too willingly. No fight, no nothing. While the book has some funny parts (that's Major Chub to you), there are better books by Carl Haissen to read that have good strong characters (Strip Tease, Double Whammy) that leave you saying "This one reminds me of..."
Rating:
Summary: Decision?: Laugh, cry, get angry.. so I did all three...
Review: This review is based on the Hardcover 1997 First Edition, publisher Albert A. Knopf Inc. AT FIRST GLANCE of the beginning pages in this writing, this reader thought she was in for a "bad read". I decided to stick with it; glad I did because the book is funny and conversely aggravating. I awarded this book four stars - could not give it the fifth star because there was a small part of me which could not conceive that some of the events in this story actually would happen! But, that is what writing and reading imagination is for.... right?! INGREDIENTS FOR A FUN READ: Start off in a town named Grange, in Florida, where miraculous manifestations occur attracting tourists from a wide distance. Take a $28 million dollar lottery; 2 tickets with the same numbers win; meaning a $14/14 million split. Combine greed, prejudice, bigotry and all the vices you can think of... then add the female winner JoLayne Lucks, who chose her playing numbers over a five-year period -- each winning lottery number representative of her age in years when loves were in her life. INCLUDE two partners Chub (a.k.a. Onus Gillespie) and Bodean Gazzer, the other winning ticket owners for the $28 million split. Mix in their need of wanting claim to the whole deal - the $28 mil - they want the money for purposes of the formation of a underground militia - named by the partners -- the White Clarion Aryans, a.k.a. the WCA - a militia they believe necessary for ready action "before NATO troops invade America". STIR in the partners plot to find JoLayne Lucks; they do locate her in the town of Grange, mistreat her badly, and abscond with her winning ticket. The partners get their first militia recruit -- Shiner, an employee of the store which sold JoLayne Lucks' winning ticket. Shiner is allowed to join Bode and Chub in the pursuit, on the condition that Shiner agrees to deny that he sold a winning ticket to JoLayne -- it is part of the deal for joining the WCA. So far, the "ingredients" begin to mix well and look promising to the WCA members to go forth to form their militia. OKAY... NOW enter the hero Tom Krome, journalist extraordinaire, assigned by his media employer to do the lottery winnings story. Krome enters the scene with his own meandering trail of troubles - a judge out to get him for fooling around with his wife; Tom's wife continues to dodge an attorney on her trail to serve her with divorce papers. Tom locates JoLayne Lucks, finding her beat up and her winning ticket stolen. Tom agrees to assist JoLayne in the chase to find Chub and Bode to get back her winning ticket. PREPARE in the meantime that "back at the ranch", other characters add salt and pepper to enliven even more the shenanigans, adventures, and activities to add to a building climax to this winning story THIS STORY strikes up emotions and imagination for readers to stick with the book deserving of an open, objective mind. It also accomplishes a goal -- giving the reader thoughts on how ridiculous and destructive vices can be, along with characters responding to the "call of duty" to assist in circumstances right through the "Epiphany". All in all the mix of ingredients make progress to an endearing ending! MY APOLOGIES and thanks to the author Carl Hiaasen that it took so long for this reader to get to his 1997, First Edition novel, overall good writing, which I located in my stash of many books just waiting in nooks & crannies to be read, while still obtaining more books from the marketplace! (What can I say? I'm an avid reader a.k.a. biblioholic. THANKS also to Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. for publishing this above-the-ordinary novel.
Rating:
Summary: Fun!
Review: This was the first book I have read by Carl Hiaasen - and I was not disappointed. Lucky You was just ... fun! If you want an exciting thriller that you can't put down and will keep you up at night, this book isn't for you. But if you want an exciting read that, at times, makes you laugh - read this book. The characters are just fun. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read for the pure joy of reading.
Rating:
Summary: Readable but...
Review: Lucky You sets us up for what appears to be a funny story, then shoots itself in the foot. Hiaasen has so much hatred for his villains that the story leaves the realm of funny adventure and enters disturbing territory as we near the close. Still, it's an easy read. It's not a bad novel to take with you on vacation or a business trip.
Rating:
Summary: Lucky Me!
Review: Carl Hiaasen offers another South Florida adventure, complete with a cast of weirdos and losers those of us in the Northeast can only dream about. It must just get too cold up here for the freakiest social misfits, but they seem to feel right at home in Mr. Hiaasen's funny tangle of a book.
Rating:
Summary: Fun, but ...
Review: ... ultimately disappointing. This is my second Hiassen (the first being the delightful StripTease) and I'm sure I'll be back for more. This is one very funny writer with a keen eye for South Florida customs and mores (I visit there every year). The basic idea of the book -- two very different lottery winners with two very different ideas of how to spend the loot -- was intriguing. But credibility was strained far more often here than in his earlier effort. Somehow in that book, once I agreed to join Hiassen through the looking glass, everything made sense. Here, there were some characters I just didn't buy. (Amber -- waitress/kidnap victim -- Tom's estranged wife and his editor, to be specific.) It felt like the author was trying to be outrageous and his self conscious wackiness just got annoying. But as I said, this is clearly a talented man and I shall give him another try soon.
Rating:
Summary: How unlucky.....
Review: How unlucky I was to read this book. Even more unfortunate was that Carl Hiaasen wrote it. I have enjoyed his books in the past, with their quips about the encroaching forces from the North that are constantly eroding our beautiful Florida environment. However, this book starts off slow with an unbelievably wild string of events and just gets stranger. Hiaasen has never been known for down-to-earth writing, but this one just gets a little too fantastic - and BORING! His deification of the newspaper business is out of hand. The characters, while wild as usual, don't quite make sense. I kept expecting fun and exciting to happen - all the way to the disappointing end. Why 3 stars?:
There are much better action/adventure books out there about South Florida and its crooked politicians. Most can only be appreciated by those who live "South of the Lake" and most were written by Carl Hiaasen himself. This book lacks the coherent quality of writing that I search for in a good novel. If I were you I would pass. Still, it is entertaining on a lower level, it would be much better to read a few chapters and put aside - there's no complicated plot line to forget so you'll be alright.
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