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Nature Girl Carl Hiaasen 9780307262998 Books

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Nature Girl Carl Hiaasen 9780307262998 Books

The Nature Girl (Honey Santana) just wants the world to be a little more polite. Her character reminds me of the lead in the film Raising Arizona (Holly Hunter's character) -- just trying to get by in a world that ain't fair and where people have no manners. This rollicking ride begins when Honey gets interrupted one too many times by a dinner time telemarketer who pushes her wrong buttons.

Honey is lovable but whacky. The other women have their issues (bad choice in men chiefly,) but are together and oh so much smarter and evolved than the men they hook too. Honey's adventure, which weaves the adventures of others together on Dismal Key in the 10,000 islands (they exist, I looked it up) off the Gulf Coast of southern Florida, is the revenge fantasy we've all had with telemarketers. She turns the table, calls the guy at home, and lures him to what he thinks is a real estate pitch in Florida. Jerk telemarketer brings his girlfriend to what Honey has planned as a "see-the-error-of-your-ways" confrontation that will teach the phone jockey just a little bit about politeness and civility.

Nothing goes as planned for any of the characters - the half-Seminole trying to reconnect with his heroic ancestors, the college coed out with her idiot boyfriend, the private eye sent by bemused wife to catch her telemarketer cheating husband in flagrante dilecto, the mutilated ex-boss of Honey who sees her as his sex-slave/wife in a new life vision, telemarketer's bored-out-of-her-gourd girlfriend, or the troupe of religious zealots waiting for the second coming by kayak on the beach of one of the islands. As is the case with the other two Hiaasen books I've read, most of the characters are helplessly horny and sex provides the motivational arc for many of them (throw in avoiding sex with a specific pursuer and it pretty much figures in the motivations of all the characters save Honey's ten year old son.). As I told someone who has read one Hiaasen book, the author seems like your funniest friend from high school who turned into a pretty good writer but whose material hasn't progressed much past tenth grade.

That's not a criticism. For what they are worth, Hiassen is a very good writer of laugh-out-loud whacky comedy/suspense books. The telemarketer's fake last name is Eisenhower - Boyd Eisenhower. Whenever he lies and has to invent someone, he always uses the last name of a president. It's a funny running gag in the book. I read most of this on two plane rides to and from Chicago and my seat mates both ways had the pleasure of listening to my chortles during our time aloft.


Tags : Nature Girl [Carl Hiaasen] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Honey Santana—impassioned, willful, possibly bipolar, self-proclaimed “queen of lost causes”—has a scheme to help rid the world of irresponsibility,Carl Hiaasen,Nature Girl,Knopf,0307262995,Florida;Fiction.,Manic-depressive illness;Fiction.,Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge (Fla.);Fiction.,Fiction,Fiction - Mystery Detective,Fiction Mystery & Detective General,Fiction-Mystery & Detective,Florida,GENERAL,General Adult,HIAASEN, CARL - PROSE & CRITICISM,Manic-depressive illness,Mystery & Detective - General,MysterySuspense,Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge (Fla.),United States

Nature Girl Carl Hiaasen 9780307262998 Books Reviews

Carl Hiassen has to be a genius. I cannot conceive of how he was able to blend a couple of telephone salespeople, a very sexually active sorority girl, a half native american 20-year old, a crazed old man with an obsession with a woman who hears music in her head, her ex-husband and her son, and an ex-drug smuggler into a extremely funny story that takes place largely on an uninhabited island in a river in Florida. Hiassen has been writing hilarious fiction about such characters and such places in Florida for years, along with a day gig as a columnist for the MIami Herald. I think I have read all of them and I can say that they are all eloquently funny stories with extremely funny but believable characters and Nature Girl is no exception. The various story lines are too complicated to get into in a review like this, but believe me; you will be laughing out loud throughout. Hiassen also has the gift of making most (not all) of the characters real people that the reader will care about. Hiassen has written books like this, centered around South Florida for years. I have read all of them after discovering Sick Puppy in a Miami bookstore and they are consistently funny, pointed and good natured at the same time...a difficult mix. Carl Hiassen is one great writer and Nature Girl is just one more example of that.
Hiaasen writes an interesting and informative novel using Florida Everglades and native American information as a fabric, along with a background of our common early evening nuisance calls and their call center personnel. Entertaining from the first page. I am working through the entire Hiaasen series.
Carl is still at the tops of his narrative wit. His humanity is evident but it doesn't keep him from being as raw as he needs to be but he also has characters not quite like anyone else puts to prose. One minute you're rolling your eyes at the antics of one person but later they practically socially and even ethically redeem themselves. I like that our "Nature Girl" has a problem. Her moral compass is a bit too dominant, but she's NOT boring or even righteous, just concerned a bit too much with the state of the world and also too willing the change that world with her own two hands.
This puts her in a situation.
My one issue was the reading by Lee Adams. That didn't last. She's a gem and her characterizations were incredible, real and fun.
Listen. Enjoy.
Totally recognizable as a Hiaasen take down of grifters, grafters, lowlifes and other spoilers who abound in the author's home state of Florida, this novel doesn't have the slashing edge throughout that many of his other books do. The stock characters are all there beautiful, smart and vengeful women, loathsome male losers who have no capacity for redemption from their lechery, larceny or general social ineptness; strong and principled men with soft spots for beautiful, smart, vengeful, lovable but slightly crazy women. The context is, of course, Florida--and
Hiaasen's favorite place of all, the Everglades. The whole mass of characters mentioned above form a scrum on an island or two and wild things happen naturally.
This is a pretty good read, with some genuine laugh-out-loud passages sprinkled throughout. But it's rather formulaic and plot-thin too often. Not the author's best effort.
The Nature Girl (Honey Santana) just wants the world to be a little more polite. Her character reminds me of the lead in the film Raising Arizona (Holly Hunter's character) -- just trying to get by in a world that ain't fair and where people have no manners. This rollicking ride begins when Honey gets interrupted one too many times by a dinner time telemarketer who pushes her wrong buttons.

Honey is lovable but whacky. The other women have their issues (bad choice in men chiefly,) but are together and oh so much smarter and evolved than the men they hook too. Honey's adventure, which weaves the adventures of others together on Dismal Key in the 10,000 islands (they exist, I looked it up) off the Gulf Coast of southern Florida, is the revenge fantasy we've all had with telemarketers. She turns the table, calls the guy at home, and lures him to what he thinks is a real estate pitch in Florida. Jerk telemarketer brings his girlfriend to what Honey has planned as a "see-the-error-of-your-ways" confrontation that will teach the phone jockey just a little bit about politeness and civility.

Nothing goes as planned for any of the characters - the half-Seminole trying to reconnect with his heroic ancestors, the college coed out with her idiot boyfriend, the private eye sent by bemused wife to catch her telemarketer cheating husband in flagrante dilecto, the mutilated ex-boss of Honey who sees her as his sex-slave/wife in a new life vision, telemarketer's bored-out-of-her-gourd girlfriend, or the troupe of religious zealots waiting for the second coming by kayak on the beach of one of the islands. As is the case with the other two Hiaasen books I've read, most of the characters are helplessly horny and sex provides the motivational arc for many of them (throw in avoiding sex with a specific pursuer and it pretty much figures in the motivations of all the characters save Honey's ten year old son.). As I told someone who has read one Hiaasen book, the author seems like your funniest friend from high school who turned into a pretty good writer but whose material hasn't progressed much past tenth grade.

That's not a criticism. For what they are worth, Hiassen is a very good writer of laugh-out-loud whacky comedy/suspense books. The telemarketer's fake last name is Eisenhower - Boyd Eisenhower. Whenever he lies and has to invent someone, he always uses the last name of a president. It's a funny running gag in the book. I read most of this on two plane rides to and from Chicago and my seat mates both ways had the pleasure of listening to my chortles during our time aloft.