Star Island

Hiaasen is almost back!

Carl Hiaasen's "Star Island" is a return to his core novels (Skin Tight, Tourist Season, et al), that put him in my library.

For the past few years, he has written Young Adult novels plus one about his experience attempting golf. Entertaining, but not the reason I read Hiaasen.

Skink, the one-eyed former Governor, and Chemo w/weed-whacker as prosthesis return in "Star Island"

But, Hiaasen is out of practice after the other novels. Star Island is a good read but a bit stale for Hiaasen. Let's hope that he returns to his wacky glory days of the early novels.

12 out of 15 people found this review helpful.

OUTRAGEOUS...OVER THE TOP...HILARIOUS

You know what they say confession is good for...so here I go: I'm a huge fan of Carl Hiaasen, hence this probably will not be an unbiased review. He always makes me smile, and I'm constantly amazed by his imagination, his productivity. After all, this is an author who not only pens bestsellers, but popular children's books, and writes a weekly column for The Miami Herald. If he has a vitamin regime - hope he'll share it.

Second, there is another admission: I'm about to become a fan of Stephen Hoye's. He delivers an apt, easy listening narration of STAR ISLAND. Would imagine that Hiaasen's works are not the easiest to read - one must have the proper inflections for all the zingers delivered and a trained voice that can easily move from character to character without missing a beat - another challenging task because as has been shown this author's characters are really outre. Hoye succeeds in all areas.

With STAR ISLAND Hiaasen takes on the celebrity life - to be precise the rollicking, ruinous life of over-the-hill alcohol and drug prone pop star Cherry Pie. Quite obviously, Cherry can be a bit of a handful for her producer who still marvels at her success when she has no discernible talent. Nonetheless, it will do her sagging career no good when she's too spaced out to make a public appearance. What's her stage mom supposed to do? Solution? Hire an actress to impersonate Cherry when she's "unavailable."

Of course, it takes more than a producer and mom to keep the randy, reeling Cherry in line - there are twin publicists (well,, not actually twins but plastic surgery does wonders); a big, ugly bodyguard called Chemo; a determined paparazzo; and Clinton Tyree (former governor of Florida now hiding out in a swamp).

The plot is driven by a multitude of hilarious, impossible situations. Hiaasen, it seems, can make even the most outrageous funny, and he does it once again with gusto in STAR ISLAND.

Enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

6 out of 8 people found this review helpful.

Starless

If I were an author, I would hope that my fans would do me proud with a review that honored me rather than embarrassed both the reviewer and me.
But, I am not an author, nor a fan of Carl Hiaasen. This is the first, and now the last, book of his that I will read. It is not an easy read, cluttered as it is with pointless happenings of no interest whatsoever. And it is not funny, which I had been led to believe it was. What it is is awful, truly one of the worst books I have read this year. Save yourself the time and trouble and read the Enquirer instead. It may not be funny either, but at least it might be interesting.

5 out of 13 people found this review helpful.

Wanting to read this!

So far all of the books this author has written i have loved/liked and now I'm excited for reading this one. So I'm definitely gona read this right when it come out.

3 out of 31 people found this review helpful.

Nutty, Fun, and Razor-Sharp!

Carl Hiaasen is at his gleefully twisted, cheerfully maniacal best in Star Island, which was released in paperback earlier this year. He has once again unleashed his clear-eyed vision of people and their foibles, this time in the fertile fields of no-discernible-talent celebrities and the parasites surrounding them.
Cherry Pye is a character everyone will recognize - she could be any number of hard-partying girls in Hollywood who seem to be famous for nothing more than drinking, drugging, rehab, and perfume endorsements.
Chock-full of real name dropping, Star Island is an unsentimental unveiling of the story behind the glossy magazine covers. And this is one of the reasons I love Carl Hiaasen's writing so much - he spares very little sentimentality for people, showing them as they really are, warts and all. This is not ncessarily unsympathetic - for instance, we learn that Cherry Pye was turned into a sexy little prepubescent by her own mother, and then signed to Jailbait records by a music producer who really likes his young clients. But the flip side is that Cherry really is a self-involved, hard-partying simpleton. Her double, Ann DeLusia, also has beauty but also brains and a sense of right and wrong, yet her upbringing was little better than Cherry's. After Ann is kidnapped by the Cherry-besotted Bang Abbott, Ann is hurt and angered to learn that Cherry's mother has not reported her kidnapping to the police. Word of Ann's existence would be financially disastrous for Cherry's "comeback", and that is more important than Ann's life. Luckily for Ann, she has met and charmed both Skink and Chemo who each have their own methods of dealing with situations such as this. And in Hiaasen's world, situations like this are the norm creating an incredibly entertaining and wild ride full of laugh out loud moments. I would recomment NOT drinking a beverage while reading this book - there are too many funny parts.
As with most of his books, the greedy get punished and the good folks have a happy ending. The ending of Star Island felt a bit forced to me, which is the only negative in an otherwise fantastic book. I didn't understand Ann's need to drag Skink to a night club (name and theme of "Pubes" - ha!) to confront the clueless Cherry, and it felt contrived. But after the wild ride of this hilarious, wacky story it's a small complaint. This book is fun and entertaining - read it!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Very disappointing

I agree with the other readers who stated this book was a waste of time and pointless. I found this book hard to get through. I kept waiting for it to get to the point. Surely a three star book would at some point in the story have some ultimate conclusion or reason for the story to be told. It was boring through and through.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Not Hiaasen's best

I usually enjoy his Florida stories and their casts. Hiaasen's Florida is populated by weirdoes and whackos who have all kinds of damage, mental and physical and emotional. Ann, our heroine, just doesn't connect. Her single defining trait seems to be sassiness, and in my opinion, we're never shown why that is so attractive to everyone she meets. Skink is charming as ever, if a little sad.

Pppppppppppppppppp

Thibook deserves a one star but im just being nice and giving it a 5 star review thibook was also very perverted. Hocan somebody have piercing on his thing?

Just ok

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Three Star/not his best book.

Tried to make is appeal to the young. He lost followers with this book!

fun story as usual

As with all of his books, it was fun to read. Not his best, but far from bad. Worth reading.

just as good as the others

always good books. still a few too many characters though

Riveting and Comical at the Same Time

Hiassen does not disappoint in this fast paced, amazing, train wreck of a novel. I use Train Wreck in the most loving way possible. That is just what Cherry Pye(Cheryl Bunterman)is. A massive train wreck. She has become so drug obsessed, that her mother hires a body double to stand in whenever she has an overdose to throw off the paparazzi. Hijinks ensue when the stand in is kidnapped by an estranged and cynical, not to mentioned bitter and burned paparazzi.The characters in this book give this book added light. It's a wonderful addition to any library.

Is it Britney or Lindsey?

This book was a fun book about the lives a well marketed but talentless young tart and all the people pulling the string. It definately seems to parallel some famous lives we know. Fun and different. Definately going to try to read some more Hiaasen.

Another good read!

Carl Hiaasen has done it again. This book could only have been set in South Florida! Having lived here for better than the last quarter of a century, none of action is outside the realm of possibility. In fact, I believe I remember some headlines in the Herald that were similar to some of what went on in the book. Again, a smart and VERY funny romp through the SF landscape, complete with all of the wonderful character types that I have come to love since living here.

Very disappointed!

Let me start out by saying that I am a HUGE Carl Hiaasen fan. I've read all his books with the exception of his tween books and can honestly say I've enjoyed them all thoroughly. I was soo looking forward to reading Star Island. Like other reviewers have mentioned this book seems forced in areas and his usual wit is lacking. He dusted off the great Skink character like he's done a few other times but in this book he almost seems a different person. Story is boring and predictable and he seems to have lost his magic touch. I will read his next novel in the hopes that Hiaasen "got his groove back" but I can say I was truly disappointed in this book.

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

I found this book boring

The characters were too superficial, I found the book tedious and boring

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Quirky,cute and sometimes touching

Good fun, catchy read, quick and light-hearted good fun. Cute. Memorable characters and high-stake high-jinx!

FUN!!

Star Island is a fun, easy read mocking modern day Hollywood...or rather, the starlets it adores. Cherry Pye seems to be a thinly veiled copy of Lindsay Lohan and the train wreck she leaves in her wake. Perfect beach or by the pool vacation reading!

Interesting premise!

Heard about the book when NPR interviewed the author who was really funny in an off-beat, tongue-in-cheek kind of way! I was not disappointed in the plot and his observations of the media-sharks and their prey, but I found the characters a little too out-there to develop any sense of relating or empathizing with any of them. It WAS a fun read - a little too graphic in parts for my taste, though - and the plot was not as far-fetched as it might seem. The "double" was plucky and seemed like the only "normal" character in the stor y but stretched my limits of imagination by the calm way she handled some of the dramatic spots. Are we sure she wasn't on drugs also?!? On the whole, filled with kooky characters and plausible dialogue and events. Something I might share but not keep on a bookshelf as a classic.