Customer Reviews

Nature Girl

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(43)
3 star:		(47)
2 star:		(31)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

One of the funniest mystery writers today is Carl Hiaason. In his latest, Nature Girl, he provides us with his usual fare--a hilariously funny story but with a message. While not as powerful as some of his previous work, Nature Girl is still an entertaining book.

Nature Girl is Honey Santana, a female version of Twilly Spreey (who Hiaason featured in Sick Puppy). Santana is divorced, raising a precocious 12 year old son Fry, and apparently suffers from bi-polar disorder. Santana's husband, Skinner, still loves his former wife and tries to run interference for her. She is known to do outrageous things "trying to demand more decency and consideration from her fellow human beings." When a hapless telephone solicitor, Boyd Shreave, interrupts her dinner time with her son and then calls her a rude name, Santana hatches a plot to teach Shreave some civility.

Santana lures Boyd and his girlfriend to the Florida wilderness and Ten Thousand Islands. Little does she know that the cast of characters that will encounter on Dismal Key. They include Sammy Tigertail (a Seminole Indian trying to hide out from the law and who hears the voices of a dead man), Gillian LaCroix (a college co-ed who wants to be taken hostage by Tigertail), Eugenie Fonda (Shreave's reluctant girlfriend), Theordore Dealey (a PI who has been hired by Shreave's wife to get incriminating photos), and Louis Piejack (an obnoxious sexual predator stalking Santana). As Dealey observes, "I wish I hadn't taken this god-damned case--I've never run up against so many card-carrying fruitballs in all my life." It's a cast that only Hiaason could produce.

But through the comic scenes, there is much to be serious about in Nature Girl. Hiaasen is anti-development, anti-tourist and pro-environment. Through it all, these themes prevail. He gives tourists a new name--tourons (rhymes with morons). He wants us to appreciate the wild beauty of Florida without wanting to change the state into a giant retirement community complete with golf courses and big box stores. There is also a spirituality running through Nature Girl. Santana reflects "the evening news made her wonder if God was dead; the morning sun made her believe he wasn't."

Despite some mixed reviews, I thoroughly enjoyed Nature Girl and am always happy when Hiaasen publishes something new.

What's not to like about a book by Carl Hiaasen? His prose is tough yet tender, his satire bites then provokes smiles, he's totally original, his offbeat characters are over the top, and, thanks to him, the State of Florida is revealed in all its steamy, seamy splendor. He won me with "Skinny Dip" and I haven't looked back since.

With "Nature Girl" we meet Boyd Shreave who is employed by Relentless, Inc. where he makes his living as a telemarketer. His mistress, Eugenie Fonda "who claimed a murky connection to the famous acting family" is in the cubicle next to him, a script is in front of him, and he has an assumed name for calling purposes - Boyd Eisenhower. He'll rue the day that he ever dialed Honey Santana's number.

Honey is a woman on a mission fueled by a rabid desire to rid the world of many adversities that have visited her, one of them being dinnertime sales calls. Her 12-year-old son, Fry, alternates between believing her to be tetched or the most wonderful Mom in the world. Her brother, Richard, is well aware that his sister "sometimes reacted to ordinary situations in unique ways." Nonetheless, he locates Boyd for her. Her plan? To sell him something he can't afford.

Sure enough, Boyd takes the bait and soon Honey is escorting the telemarketer and his reluctant mistress on a kayak tour through the wilds of Ten Thousand Islands. She just intends to teach them a lesson or three. What she hadn't counted on is Piejack, her boss at the fish market, following her. Piejack is the kind of guy who thinks sexual harassment in the workplace is acceptable, and the object of his attention is Honey.

Now, read carefully (this is Hiaasen) - Piejack is being followed by Honey's ex, Perry, and Fry. Dismal Key is a landing place for this parade, and it's there they find Sammy Tigertail, a half-white, half-Seminole former alligator wrestler who tried his hand at doing airboat tours. But, when his first customer died on board, he told his uncle "he wasn't spiritually equipped to deal with tourists." Precisely what he is equipped for is subject for conjecture.

Hiaasen's cast of crazy characters garner laughs aplenty. His meandering plot is a playful perplexity, and every page is a reminder that this author has no peers. Long may he scribe!

- Gail Cooke

Hiaasen is absolutely a fabulous author!! His novel brings together a cast of eclectic and "border-line" personalities into the swamps and keys of Florida with an undertone of environmental responsibility. An "off-her-meds" woman decides to teach a lesson to a telemarketer and his mistress by luring them into a lesson teaching get-away. Her ex-husband is trying to keep an eye on her, as is her 12 year old son. They end up crossing paths with a half-white half-Seminole young man who is hiding from the law due to the death of his first client and his voluntary hostage, a young co-ed looking for adventure and possible romance.

This tale is entertaining and intelligent as always in Hiaasen's approach to his anti-development message. Hiaasen delivers his message in an entertaining intricate story. This is not his best novel but when you are talking Hiaasen they are all good, this is just a little less great than his others.

This is a three hundred+ page book. For the first 50 or 60 pages I was convinced that this one would be great--in fact, a comeback from some of his weaker efforts. For the next 50 or so pages I was still very much amused but was beginning to wonder a bit about an increased reliance on crude and overly sexual humoristic devices (I am no prude but enough is enough!).

In the second third of the book it began to dawn on me that this one would just not get any better. The plot went from meandering (typically not a bad thing in a CH book) to grindingly slow and plainly confused as well as predictable. The characters did not gain the likability to hold my interest and the plot...

The final third is outright painful. While in the past I may have been reluctant to finish a CH book too quickly so that I could continue to savor it, this time it's hard work to make it through. At this point (70 pages to go), my main determination comes from a desire to move on to a more inspiring and intersting book.

Have I enjoyed CH's book immensely in the past? Absolutely! He used to be the best at what he did. Will I read the next one? You bet (although I sincerely hope that it will be worth it that time!).

I was debating whether to give two or three stars. Finally I decided that I would have given three to a lesser writer. But I will have to stick with two knowing what this author has been able to do in the past.

As with all Hiassen books, _Nature Girl_ abounds with black humor, heartfelt anger, vivid-characters, and funny/surreal plot twists. It has, in other words, a lot of good bits. But the good bits don't add up to a good book. Neither the plot nor the characters ever fully engages.

Exhibit A is Honey Santana, our alleged protagonist. Frankly, she's very hard to like. Honey is irresponsible, unthinking, self-centered, self-righteous, and manipulative, as well as being a liar and a cheat. Yeah, she's passionate about the environment. Big deal.

Exhibit B is Boyd Shreave, our nominal antagonist. Initially, Boyd isn't much less sympathetic than Honey. Okay, he's a shlub. Okay, he's insensitive and self-centered. That doesn't make him a villain. Worse, Honey decides to unload on him before she knows anything about his character. What if Boyd had turned out to be a poor hard-working decent guy who had to go into telemarketing to support a sick family member? Would Hiassen still expect us to admire Honey?

As if to make up for these lacks, Hiaasen introduces a second antagonist *and* a second protagonist. Piejack, the secondbad guy, is a Hiassen stock character: the Sleazy Pharmacollogically-Enhanced Maimed Delusional Whacko. Unfortunately, he doesn't show up until around page 130, which is much too late. Whereas Sammy Tigertail isn't much use, protagonist-wise, since all he really wants is to be left alone.

This illustrates the other major weakness of _Nature Girl_. A strong story requires a protagonist who wants something, and who has to overcome some obstacle(s) to get it. (That's practically the definition of "plot," after all.) The wants of our ostensible protagonists are not very compelling--and are largely of their own making--and the obstacles they face are not very interesting. Hiassen's better books usually start out with a crime, right in the first chapter, which immediately provides both a goal and a challenge for the hero.

Once Hiassen gets his cast of characters onto Dismal Key, the action at least picks up. It's remeniscent of one of those black-and-white movie bedroom farces, where people keep popping into and out of various rooms in search of one another. It's amusing, and occasionally tense, but it's rather artificial. It would be fine as a scene or two, but it doesn't develop any structure or build up suspense, and so it can't really support the weight of plot that's placed on it.

I don't mean to imply that reading _Nature Girl_ is a painful experience. Hiassen is never less than excellent at putting words together, and his dialog and descriptive powers are as sharp as ever.

Next time, though, I hope he

a) Sticks to one major protagonist and one major antagonist;

b) Makes the protagonist at least a bit likeable; and

c) Starts with a crime!

I have read every novel Hiaasen has ever written -- even his early works, co-written with Bill Montalbano (Trip Line and A Death in China -- not funny stuff, but enjoyable nonetheless). Nature Girl is far and away his worst effort. In fact, I'm convinced his staff, and not he, wrote it -- it completely lacks any humor whatsoever, and is missing that Hiaasen edge. All of the characters are paper thin, and garner no sympathy. The plot...was there one? I didn't care about anyone, I didn't care what happened, and I only finished it because I hoped that somewhere this novel would redeem itself. It didn't. Hopefully this was just a one-time slip-up, and he'll come back roaring with his next novel. But you can be sure I'll wait to read the reviews, and won't pre-order it like I did with this giant doorstop.

Nobody makes playing with words so much fun as Hiaasen does. He's got the most bizarre imagination. The cast of characters is crazy, the stories, as usual, get all interconnected, and the result is a fun and satisfying ride.

I found this book to be less philosophical and deep than some of his others. There wasn't an environmental "bad guy" out to destroy habitats to build a cheap housing development, though there definitely were a few bad guys who certainly didn't appreciate their surroundings. It was a lot more fun and quirky, and less of a morality tale.

Definitely a must-read for fans of Hiaasen. And if you're up for a crazy ride that's part mystery, part satire, and pure comedy, give it a whirl. I actually bought Brideshead Revisited to reread after Hiaasen was compared to Waugh - another classic satirist worth reading.

Okay, I agree with some of the other reviews. It is not quite as good as Hiaason's best(Strip Tease, Lucky You, Basket Case), but a lot better than his worst (Sick Puppy, Tourist Season). But even a bad Carl Hiaason novel is a whole lot better than some other books being published today.

I liked the story, although I think it would have been better recieved about five years ago. Before the do not call lists, when telemarketing was just way out of hand. The characters are pretty funny. All in all, this book is worth the money, especially if you are a Hiaason fan.

When the phone rang. It was a telemarketer trying to sell you something that you didn't want and they wouldn't take NO for an answer. It's happened to all of us at one time or another.

Thus we have the basic premise for the new book by Carl Hiaasen. It starts off like a classic crime fiction novel-we have a corpse within the first few sentences. Don't be fooled-it's more comedy fiction than crime novel.

The "nature girl" of the title is Honey Santana. A single mother, Honey lives in a trailer park with her 12 1/2 year old son, Fry. They were just sitting down to supper when, you guessed it, a telemarketer (Boyd Eisenhower-calling from Texas) disturbed their meal.

Honey has some problems-she keeps hearing two songs at once in her head-like Nat King Cole and Nine Inch Nails at the same time. Her mental peculiarities broke up her marriage. When she starts giving the telemarketer a hard time he flips out and calls her names.

Honey wants revenge and she gets it. Hiaasen has written a wacky and vicariously delightful adventure that unfolds mostly in the swamps of the Everglades in SW Florida.

It's not classic literature but it's truly hilarious.

You can't go wrong buying any other of Carl Hiaasen's novels, my favorite's Double Whammy, but honestly they're all good. This one's the most boring, predictable, unfunny novel I've read in a long time.

There isn't a single unexpected characterization in the entire book. It can all be boiled down to white bad, male bad, female not so bad, Indian better -- religious all bad. It's rather sad to see a white Florida resource-consuming male write so scathingly and contemptibly about white Florida resource-consuming males, it's such an embarrassingly cliched novel it reads much more like someone with no imagination, humor or originality trying to imitate Carl Hiaasen than Carl Hiaasen himself.

But his other novels are winners, so please do yourself a favor, forget this dreck and buy the rest of them.