Nature Girl

by Carl Hiaasen

Hardcover, 2006

Call number

FIC HIA

Collection

Publication

Knopf (2006), Edition: 1st, 320 pages

Description

When a rude telemarketer calls while Honey Santana and her son are having dinner she decides to teach him a lesson in good behavior. She lures him and his mistress with a pitch for Florida real estate and includes her ex-husband and 12-year-old son in her plot.

User reviews

LibraryThing member indygo88
Okay, I really did want to like this. But...I found it overly contrived & just kind of ridiculous overall. I found the characters annoying & I was just waiting for the story to end. But it kept going, and going, and going.... This was my first read by Hiaasen, and I was curious as to his writing
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style. But I think it might be my one and only.
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LibraryThing member ctfrench
Sammy Tigertail, half-white, half-Seminole, has yet to find his place in the world. Raised by his white father, Sammy returned to the Seminole reservation at a young age, where he has since tried to fit in. Sammy has a failed work history as an alligator wrestler, and now he's trying his luck with
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the tourist industry. When Sammy takes his first vacationer on an airboat ride, the man dies from a heart attack. Sammy panics and dumps the man's body into the water, then goes into hiding on Dismal Key. His first night there, Sammy scares a group of college students off the island, but one young woman refuses to leave.

Honey Santana is a strong woman determined to raise her son to be a good man in a corrupt world in Southern Florida. Honey hears song lyrics in her head and is prone to an obsessive need to make a point. When Boyd Shreave, a telemarketer who hasn't done an honest day's labor in his life, interrupts her dinner one night, his rude response to her attempt to tell him he's calling at a bad time prompts Honey to take action. Honey lures Boyd to Florida with promises of a major investment in land, where she intends to teach him a lesson in civility. Boyd arrives with his mistress, Eugenie, and the three embark on a kayak ride through Ten Thousand Islands. Unknown to Boyd is that his wife has hired a private investigator to trail her husband and catch him in the act. Honey also has a man after her, Piejack, her former employer with a bandaged hand and mismatched fingers, who's been lusting after Honey and is determined to make her his.

Throw into this wild mix Honey's levelheaded son, Fry, and her ex-husband, Perry, a former drug runner who is still in love with Honey. The two have come to rescue Honey from Piejack, which leads to one hilarious romp through the Everglades with characters bumping into and chasing one another all over the island.

On par with Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiaasen delivers a fun read, with wacky, outside-the-box characters and a laugh-out-loud plot. The story moves quickly and is vastly entertaining throughout, so much so that the reader will not be quite ready to put the book down at the end. This must-read is highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member witchyrichy
Just funny but also bittersweet with characters right out of Dickens. I got caught up in it and had to finish it. The narrative moved between different scenes and characters, but it was fairly easy to follow. I have to agree with the Boston Globe review snippets on the cover of my paperback:
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"hilarious....pure outlandish silliness...a breakneck narrative."
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LibraryThing member mikeandmelinda
When Honey Santana gets insulted by a telemarketer, she sets in motion a plan to get revenge on him. Unfortunately, things don't go according to plan and start to spiral out of control. Like most of Hiaasen's books, this is a funny and entertaining read.
LibraryThing member km3scott
Honey Santana goes ballistic when she gets a call from a telemarketer at dinnertime. The two exchange insults, and the story begins. Honey is by nature intense (maybe manic) and determined. She is going to find this telemarketer and show him the error of his ways. Along the way we meet him (Boyd
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Shreave), his girlfriend (Genie), and his wife. New characters and storylines appear, including Sammy Tigertail, good for nothing Louis Piejack, and a very nervous private investigator. Honey's son Fry and his dad also become involved. Everyone winds up on a deserted Florida island, where Honey has lured Boyd and his girlfriend for a little chat. Although the plot drags in places, the seemingly unrelated storylines come together nicely in the end.
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LibraryThing member eenerd
I am a bona-fide Hiaasen fan but this is not his best work. The typical formula is there, but he only goes half-way with all of it. I hope he's not getting soft on us...Hiaasen's greatness is his usual willingness to create characters that make you wince. You can't believe they are doing what
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they're doing (like bull-dozing over an island's worth of frogs). I was pretty disappointed with this one, and it was hard to finish. Too bad.
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LibraryThing member volvomom
Funny, but not one of Hiaasen's best. He had his token lines, but didn't blow me away with scenes like Tim Dorsey now tends to do. I'm starting to feel like Carl Hiaasen is trying too hard to push his message of all that is evil in Florida. Just have fun, Carl! Where is the fun Carl we used to
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know! That's how we received the message! Please come back!
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LibraryThing member shawnd
This is a light-hearted drama, kind of Sue Grafton without the mystery. Like Grafton the characters are not attorneys or high powered businessmen, but middle or poor people. As such, it gives a telling view into middle American life and struggles without being depressing--indeed an upbeat tone
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threads the tale. I found the characters better than the plot, which verges on the brink of unbelievable but stays more on the side of 'truth is stranger than fiction'. The writing was decent, and never verges into clunky which is why it wasn't disappointing for a novel almost approaching pulp.
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LibraryThing member diannecanning
A rollicking look at some of the consequences of environmental damage and the characters that are involved in development.
LibraryThing member rayski
Contrived story about a woman who wants to get even with a telemarketer. She fools him into a trip through the Everglades where she finds her past and the telemarketer isn’t changed. Silly. I still don’t understand why I finished the book.
LibraryThing member samfinlay
As usual Hiaasen comes up with a hugely imaginative range of characters thrown together in a unlikely situation. A good romp. I'll never speak to a telesales person without thinking of this book again.
LibraryThing member Regavid
I love Carl Hiaasen and everything he's written, up until now! I guess you can't get a winner every time. Seems like he owed the publisher another book so he half heartedly just punched one out. All his other books had me laughing out loud but this one left me rather blah. By the way......anyone
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else notice a rather unique word Hiaasen uses at least once in every novel?
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LibraryThing member gidders
Perhaps not Hiassens best, but Nature Girl is packed full of his typically larger than life characters. As always, the dialogue sparkles, and the insults are particularly original. As for his descriptive turn of phrases, well. Anyone "smuggling the yo-yo today"?
LibraryThing member TTAISI-Editor
Another Hiaasen classic, with a series of cascading and interwoven plots of Florida silliness!
LibraryThing member DGrivetto
I like Carl Hiaasen. I really wanted to like this book. I didn't . I found it boring. Uneventful. Not funny like he usually is.
LibraryThing member readingrat
The first Carl Hiaasen I've read that is written for adults, but definitely not my last. Populated with a cast of quirky (and in some cases deranged) characters and plotted to ensure these characters get themselves into the maximum amount of trouble, this story keeps the reader entertained from
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beginning to end. It won't be long before I'm digging another Carl Hiaasen out of my TBR pile.
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LibraryThing member SonicQuack
Hiaasen fans are in for the usual heady mix of wacky characters brought together in bizarre circumstances. Here, an obnoxious telesales operator is lulled in to a trap to set him on a path of righteousness. The backdrop is the myriad of islands of Florida's 'Thousand Islands' and it's real boon to
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this captivating story. It's original and humourous - Hiaasen has great skill in creating witty narrative, bursting at the seams with (often misplaced) idealism. It's a very unlikely tale, but then Hiaasen pulls it off as usual. An easy going book, with plenty of interesting elements - recommended.
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LibraryThing member PghDragonMan
Nature Girl was my introduction to Carl Hiaasen. Why I’d not picked up his works before this is a mystery to me. He is funny and his characters are very believable, even if their misadventures are not. The book implies that Honey Santana, the title character in this work, is a reoccurring
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character. I’m going to scour the book shelves in of my local discount book stores for more. Even if Honey is not there, I think the author will be worth read for more stories.

If you are looking for really deep stuff, this is not it, but Hiaasen does raise some interesting philosophical points in this work about privacy, being what we are and what makes a good parent. Nonetheless, this is mostly a lighthearted farce with some gratuitous sex scenes thrown in. Hiaasen even manages to have some fun with one of the characters wishes of what they want on videotape.

Great travel reading and wonderful escapist reading. Best of all, the author does not pretend it is anything more than it really is. Even if you are not into outdoor adventure, outdoor sex or ever wanted to see Florida wild life, give this book a try. It is worth the read.
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LibraryThing member rae2008
Took about 100 pages before book caught my interest.
LibraryThing member moviegirl
I love Hiaasen because he is so quirky and odd.
LibraryThing member paulsikora
More reliable great fun from Mr. Hiaasen.
LibraryThing member bkoopman
Nature Girl is easy, fun reading, perfect for summer days. It is easy to pick up, but it is also easy to put down. Nothing compelling here, just a fun romp. Set primarily amidst islands in the Keys of Florida, the characters are just plain odd, every last one of them. Remarkably, the main
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character, Honey Santana, is likable, in spite of being vindictive and psychotic, traits I generally do not associate with "charming." Some of the passages were a bit off-putting for me, but a quick skim through them did not seem to interfere with the story, either.

Nature Girl is the first adult novel I have read by Hiaasen. Reviewers contend that this is not his writing at its best. I will venture into his world again.
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LibraryThing member andyray
The thing I like about Hiaasen's writing is his painting of his world, with wacky characters that can and do exist in this state's larger metro areas. This trailer park girl kills two birds with one stone -- her revenge on a telemarketer who called her at dinnertime and money to be made on her
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"ecotours" , complete with kayaks and supplies. watch the SNAFUs unfold in Hiassen's humour.
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LibraryThing member Brian55
I read Sick Puppy first (it was my first book by Hiaasen), and enjoyed it much more. The twists in this one seemed much more bizzare and far-fetched, and I know that's much of his style but, it took some of the enjoyment out of it. I will read more of his but, not for a while.
LibraryThing member addunn3
Follows Honey Santana as the crazy girl attempts to "educate" a manner-less and clueless telemarketer. The first 3/4 of the book is pretty good but towards the end it seemed to lose purpose and was more like a description of meetings and agendas. Also, this book had little substance that might grab
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us up and make us take notice. Telemarketers? Not enough anger there to call home about, or call anyone else at dinner time for that matter!
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Awards

Florida Book Award (Silver Medal — General Fiction — 2006)

Pages

320

ISBN

0307262995 / 9780307262998
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