Customer Reviews

Hooked

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Clarence `Woody' Woods is going to go from dock boy to a real estate
mogul with the help of a magical fish named Raymond Prince and
Madalina, a waitress he is in love with. She is what he wants and he
is willing to do anything to make her happy.

Madalina Dragoi knows what she wants and is willing to do whatever it
takes to get it. If she offends anyone along the way, that is their
problem not hers. Woody is a means to an end for her.

Hooked is quirky, fun and worthy new look at an old tale. I enjoyed
both it's lighthearted sections and the truthfulness of how people act
when they are thrown into different situations. I was concerned as I
was reading how Hooked would end but I thoroughly enjoyed the ending
as much as I enjoyed the rest of the novel. Ms. May's writing left me
with a smile on my face.

Barb
Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed

In Miami, twenty-eight years old assistant dock master at the luxurious Trade Winds Yacht Club Clarence "Woody" Woods lives with his aunt and drives a dilapidated truck. He was never conscious of his status until he meets Romanian waitress Madalina Dragoi at the Spinnaker Café as love has turned his six foot frame into the size of a pea. However, she treats him like a friendly customer while seemingly wanting affluent club member Todd Hollings who sees her as a fine "piece of ass".

Former used car dealer Raymond Prince was caught cheating by his irate wife Sandy; he knew his life was changed forever, but not how much as he now swims with the fish as the Prince of the sea. He meets Woody and tells him that he can grant any wish the man wanted. Soon Woody owns a new car and a mansion where Madalina resides. When she demands he order his talking fish to provide them with much more material luxuries, Woody fears bankruptcy of the heart more than finance.

This is an entertaining modern day adult rendition of the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale The Fisherman and His Wife. The lighthearted and amusing story line contains moral lessons as the cast learn lessons in relationships of all kinds such as Woody finds out the hard way not to think with his woody while Prince is a Brooklyn version of Mr. Limpet wondering how to get Sandy to forgive him for his unzippered moment. Readers will be HOOKED by Jane May's humorous irreverent tale of sometimes you get what you wish for but that is never enough.

Harriet Klausner

Jane May follows up her highly entertaining "Doggy Style," narrated by a dog, with "Hooked," featuring a talking fish. You don't have to be an animal lover to appreciate the author's flowing, creative, imaginative story telling. Her latest literary effort includes a diverse assortment of characters, some likable, some unlikable and others you're not quite sure about until the last few pages, which arrive far too quickly. Can't wait to read what's next from this recently discovered talent. More Jane May, please.

Hooked is a modern retelling of an old tale. Jane May beings it to life with abandon and style. Woody is the assistant dock master at an exclusive Miami Yacht Club. He falls in love with the Romanian Madalina, who is a waitress at the club, but he has competition in Todd Hollinshead a wealthy and spoiled club regular. Woody gets help with his love life from an unlikely source-a tuna who talks Woody into letting him go in exchange for fulfilling Woody's every need.

"All you need to do is ask." Is the tuna's line. Woody asks, the tuna delivers, and suddenly life is getting very complicated for Woody. Soon his life is being turned upside down, and he learns that getting everything he wants might just destroy him.

Jane May has penned a romp through our modern consumer sensibilities. Woody is an engaging character, and he is accompanied through the story by other quirky and unusual people. Even knowing the fairy tale from which she took her plot, the book is an enjoyable read. I found Woody's relationship to Madalina to be a bit fixated on his sexual reactions, but that didn't detract from the story.

Jane May skillfully traps Woody with his own desires. She uses the story to nudge the reader to think about the consumer culture and whether our desires are leading us down a similar path. She doesn't try to hammer the point home, but lets the story amuse the reader.

I found Hooked to be a fun and engaging read, but it is a book for adults given the nature of Woody's attraction to Madalina.

Armchair Interviews says: Most enjoyable story--with a message and lots of cultural questions.

Hooked is a fast paced,light hearted romance story based in Miami. If you like love stories, sailing stories or rags to riches to rags stories, you will enjoy this book. It was an enjoyable read,compelling you to find out if the hero 'gets lucky' and I was sorry when it was over. This book has movie script written all over it.

"Woody" or Clarence Woods, assistant dock master at the Miami Trade Winds Yacht Club, has gone over the edge with desiring the flirtatious, voluptuous waitress, Madalina Dragoi.

But Woody hardly has the money to woo Madalina in a way guaranteed to hook her, so he proceeds to hire himself out to a super-rich, yacht owner who knows nothing of the boat he's bought on E-Bay. After a few hilarious mishaps, Woody manages to leisurely fish one day and his catch is a slapstick, hilarious character turned into a 40 lb. talking tuna, Raymond the Prince.

Things rapidly change as Raymond is a magical fish who proceeds to grant Woody his every wish, including Madalina and all the accouterments guaranteed to impress her. Will Woody find happiness in this fairy tale world where his competition, upper class snobby Todd Hollinshead, seems to fade away from Madalina's attention?

Receiving one's wishes may not be all it's cut out to be in the yearning, lottery-winner world of the average American, but Hooked gives a surface light, airy, funny and romantic side to the "lucky" dreams-come-true scenario. Woody and Raymond's fate certainly portrays a surprising and not-so-surprising ending that will keep the reader thinking about what fate has in store for one's "enchanted" life!

Reviewed by Viviane Crystal on September 27, 2006

Jane May's frothy novel Hooked is an adaptation and modernization of "The Fisherman and his Wife." In the fairy tale, a poor fisherman spares the life of an enchanted prince turned fish who has the power to grant wishes. Though the fisherman is content with his lot, his grasping wife induces him to make increasingly extravagant requests of the fish until, in an ironic turn, a wish lands the couple back at square one. May's book tells more or less the same story, with a few twists. The fisherman of her tale is nice guy "Woody" Woods, a 28-year-old assistant dock master at a Miami yacht club. Woody falls head-over-heels for Madalina, a Romanian gold-digger, shortly before going fishing with a client. What he reels in isn't an enchanted prince, but a foul-mouthed former car salesman--now a skipjack tuna--by the name of Raymond Prince, whose philandering landed him quite literally in deep water and who is of course endowed with the power to make things happen.

May has done a decent job of transferring the story to modern-day Miami, though she seems to have forgotten about the wonders of the internet:

"A perfect night for chilling out, only Woody could not relax until he had the answer to a very BIG question: was this Raymond Prince the real deal or a figment of his very active imagination?

"The only way to find out, of course, was to engage in behavior which might, to an innocent observer, appear psychotic [i.e., summoning the fish]"

Surely a modern-day twenty-something would think to Google "Raymond Prince car sales" to see if his fish's story held up?

Unfortunately, May's characters are poorly developed and for the most part boorish. Woody's blind attraction to Madalina, however large her breasts, strains credibility. And the book's dialogue is also frequently unbelievable. Two women in their sixties, for example, are not likely to have a chat like this:

"'You cheap old coot! I told you that you should have sprung for new glasses.'

"'Go suck an egg. It's not about the money.'

"'Sooner or later, honey, it's always about the money.'"

Madalina's dialogue, meanwhile, is heavily accented and salty:

"'I do not mean to make dis on you, Voody. Was [expletive deleted] thing to do. Shame for me. My mana, she always say to me, Madalina, you speak like water run from pipe is broken.'

"In a contrite gesture, Madalina tenderly touched Woody's arm. Heat waves shot down to his toes and back up to his crotch singeing the pubes on his testicles."

I've nothing against swearing or sex per se, but the effect of their introduction into the narrative should not be cringe-inducing, as in the above example. Presumably the author is going for light-hearted romp rather than yuck, get a room. And maybe another reader will think the book great fun. But I found myself grimacing more often than I would have liked.

The idea behind Hooked is a clever one: I like the idea of translating fairy tales to a modern stage. Readers less stodgy than I might want to give this quick read a spin.

-- Debra Hamel