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Loading... Sick Puppyby Carl Hiaasen
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Two governors -- one who disappeared in the middle of his term and turns himself into a jungle hobo -- fool with the ecological balance, and for this story's time, the tree huggeers win. Hooray. (  ) andyray | Nov 21, 2009 |  Sick Puppy is my second Carl Hiaasen book. While it follows a formula similar to Nature Girl, it is distinctly different. The setting is still Florida and the theme is still promoting better ecological practices, this book also takes on politics and political lobbyists. One thing I like about Hiaasen’s style is he does not come off as pretentious or preachy. Yes, he has a lesson to teach us about respecting Mother Nature, but he slips the message in through a lot of great story telling. You almost don’t realize how strong the message is getting through until you start watching for people throwing trash from their cars. There’s quite a bit of cartoonish violence, but it is not described in excruciating detail. The same for the sex. There’s a lot of it, but the book could hardly be described as pornographic or even erotic. It is mostly conveyed through innuendo. Not quite in the same league as Edward Abbey’s Monkey Wrench Gang, the book still tries to make a case for ecoterrorism being justifiable under the right circumstances. This circumstances just happen to be a matter of personal interpretation. The ending scenes are hardly comedic, yet the overall tone of this book is light. If you enjoy a light approach to a serious topic, this is a good one for you. If you’ve read other adult Hiaasen books, this belongs in your collection. If you’re a fan of clear cut logging and throw your empty wrappers out your SUVs window’s, you’ll hate this book. (  ) PghDragonMan | Jul 18, 2009 | A fun read, but slightly too long. ( ) stembrook | May 26, 2009 | I picked this copy up through BookCrossing; it was a wild release I found in a used book store. The plot is classic Hiaasen: Twilly Spree is a well-off environmentalist who decides to teach a litterbug a lesson. He ends up kidnapping the litterbug's dog and blackmailing him to keep an island off the coast of Florida from being developed. There are tons of other crazy characters, of course, and a lot of political intrigue and wacky high jinks. I found this book immensely entertaining; it was my first adult Hiaasen novel, and it definitely won't be my last. I loved the character of Twilly because he's such a contradiction: a rich hippie with a heart of gold...and anger management issues. Highly recommended reading for anyone who's ever had an urge to give a litterbug a piece of their mind. ( ) jessidee | Jan 25, 2009 | Funny, but a little tedious and too fanciful. jmcilree | Dec 1, 2008 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0446604666, Mass Market Paperback)Carl Hiaasen's characters ride and flail on little verbal hurricanes, and his literary storm shows no signs of dying down. Sick Puppy shares Dave Barry's giddy gift for finding humor in South Florida horrors, and a bit of Elmore Leonard's genius for pitch-perfect dialogue spouted smartly by criminals who are dumb as stumps. The title of Hiaasen's eighth novel could apply to most of its characters, but it chiefly refers to an ebullient Labrador retriever named Boodle and the millionaire eco-terrorist Twilly Spree. Let's just say that Twilly has a singular affliction: poor anger management in the face of environmental irresponsibility. When he spots Boodle's owner, Palmer Stoat, tossing litter from a car, Twilly goes to Stoat's home and removes the glass eyeballs from the animals that the bloated lobbyist had shot and mounted on his walls. Boodle gulps down the eyeballs, sustaining no small amount of digestive difficulties.Soon Boodle and Stoat's wife, Desie, are fugitives from Florida's nature despoilers (who include the Governor, a "gladhanding maggot," the amusingly slimy Stoat, the human bulldozer Krimmler, the cocaine-importer-turned-developer Clapley, and the hit man Mr. Gash, who's fond of sex with multiple beach bimbos in iguana-skin sex harnesses to the tunes of The World's Most Blood Curdling Emergency Calls). Desie, who has a knack for calamitous romance, is smitten with Twilly, but urges him not to kill any litterbugs or pelican molesters: "Jail would not be good for this relationship." What keeps pure farce at bay in a novel that romps with the abandon of a scent-crazed Labrador is the otherwise charming Twilly's creepy edge of implacable fanaticism. And what redeems the funny/ugly violence from cliché is its colorful bad guys (they're as iridescent as oil slicks), Hiaasen's excellent wit, and the music of his prose. To evoke a drunk asleep on the beach, he adds a pungent detail: "a gleaming stellate dollop of seagull shit decorated his forehead." Hiaasen is not unflawed. His original eco-terrorist character, ex-Florida governor Clinton "Skink" Tyree, seems like an interloper from the earlier books. But Hiaasen's the master of madcap ensembles (which is partly why the star-vehicle film of his fine book Strip Tease flopped). And even when you can see a chase scene's denouement coming for a beachfront mile, each paragraph packs descriptive delights to keep you going at breakneck pace. --Tim Appelo (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:53 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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