Okay, so I know that I am lame. I picked this book out based solely on the fact that I discovered that it was on Dr. Shephard's shelf. However, I saw it also came highly recommended. So I thought I'd check it out.Plot:Charles Perrone, a crooked marine biologist who drives a Hummer and doesn't recycle, dumps his wife, Joey, off a cruise ship into the Key West waters to die. Joey, a champion swimmer, however does not die and is rescued by first a bale of marijuana and then Mick Stanagan, a chronic divorcee and ex-cop. Ticked beyond reason, Joey wants to torment her husband.Meanwhile, Charles spends most of his time behaving like an adolescent and getting freaked out by a curious cop, Rolvaag, who thinks the marine biologist is not quite what he seems, and his real employer, Red Hammernut, whose assets would be in danger if he actually implemented the environmental practices dictated by government ordnances.Good:This is a really good plot concept. Husband chucks wife into the ocean; wife swims to safety and decides to torment husband. Really inventive idea (but see below). Besides the fact that Jack Shephard had this book on his bookshelf, this was another reason I was excited to read this book.Although some of the characters were heavily caricatured and hard to relate to, there were a few that I could connect with, namely Mick Stanagan and Karl Rolvaag. I liked how Carl Hiassen wrote them. Mick was the reclusive former cop (although, now that I think about it, he really doesn't act like a cop) who lends a helping hand to poor Joey. Further, I felt that Joey and Mick really had chemistry.Karl Rolvaag was a very interesting character as well. His little plot line--moving to Minnesota and losing his pythons--made him very human. He really didn't have much point in the book and isn't moral enough to see justice carried out, but I still liked him.Ricca, Chaz's girlfriend, was really fun. The way she tormented him...man! Her split with Chaz just proves that Chaz can't keep a woman longer than a night.Bad:Here are the points that really drive me nuts.1. Despite the copious "laugh-out loud, screwball humor" quotes from the New York Times, People, Los Angeles Times Book Review, etc., I really didn't find a whole lot of this funny. Not gut-wrenching funny. More of like amusing, "Oh, that's weird" funny, if any type of funny at all. I don't think I cracked a grin, much less burst out into guffaws over any of the scenes in this book. So, this was rather disappointing to me.2. This book must have been written with adolescent boys in mind. Before I read this, I thought Red Dwarf was bad. This book makes Red Dwarf look like monastery material. Every single chapter has some explicit sexual situation in it. While I understand that this is consistent with Chaz's character, I wished that the author had held back a little on his descriptions. After all, this is a mystery book.3. The "bad guys" were pretty stupid and hicky. Red Hammernut spoke like a moron; I have no idea why presidents, governors, and the like would care to be seen around such an idiot. Tool had character, but he was rather far-fetched. His relationship with Maureen tried to bring the humanity out of him, but it was too late for the Mountain Dew-chugging, rear-end wounded crew boss turned bodyguard. Chaz was a self-absorbed, sex-obsessed teenager disguised as a doctor. He is so incompetent, he can't kill not once, but three times and has no idea what his degree entails. I don't see how Karl Rolvaag and his team could not get enough information on this rag-tag team of imbeciles to throw them away forever.4. The "good guys" were somewhat flat. Joey seems to be a really competent woman with a good head on her shoulders, but I can't believe that she would have stuck with Chaz for as long as she did (what with Chaz's adolescent behavior). Mick is okay, but there really isn't enough of him to get into his mind. He is a loner on an island with so many divorces. Karl is just a cop more interested in moving than in doing his job well. It's a good thing he left or no case in Florida would ever be solved. Corbett is a strange sheepherder. When I say strange, I say hermit living in the boonies with long beards and staffs. Why is it when authors want to show a hermit they have to make him with long unkempt beards and staffs? I love nature too, but I also love having my hair nice, my nails kept, and makeup every once and awhile.5. The plot concept was good, but got bogged down in recounting Chaz's sexual life, Tool's rear injury and idiosyncrasies, little episodes about Karl's move to Minnesota, Red's rantings, and all the strange, not quite explained things that Joey and Mick do to drive Chaz nuts. And then what should have been an ultimate showdown becomes an ultimate "let-down". If my husband had chucked me over a boat, I certainly wouldn't be taking the road that Joey did.Dialogue/Sexual Situations/Violence:F-word gets a real workout. There were 496 pages in my copy; the word appeared at least once on every page. That does not even include other foul language, such as sh**, d***, and rude terms for minorities (blacks, Hispanics, etc.). Sexual situations are about as frequent as the f-word is. In the approximately 30 chapters, some type of sexual situation--either from Chaz or Joey--or sexual innuendo is presented in somewhat graphic terms. Chaz has been cheating on his wife; Joey sleeps with another man. Violence is moderate--mostly reduced to a man who is afflicted with a bullet up his you-know-what, insinuated comments about how migrant workers were treated, and one person who ends up skewered.Overall:On the one hand, this is a well-written book. I finished it within a week and for an almost 500 page book, that is impressive (for me). Of course, the language wasn't that advanced and the writing easy, but still, it was catchy. Also, the plot moved forward--even when it got bogged down with Chaz's innumerable sexual exploits. The characters, although caricatures, talked like they should and not as if they planned their statements using a thesaurus. That said, I still think that too much of the plot centered on Chaz's sex life. The book needed to focus more on Joey's efforts and less on Chaz's sexual exploits.
I read this when I was on vacation in Florida, and I liked it -- it was F-U-N. This is the only Hiaasen I've ever read, though I've started one or two others and not gotten into it/them.I have to admit, while I was reading this I couldn't stop wishing that Elmore Leonard would care about the environment. I really love that Hiassen works his conservationist agenda in so wonderfully in a way that enhances, rather than detracts from, his fun fun fun story, but I just can't get as into other stuff about him as I'd like to be. It's kind of like going on a date with a cute, charming, alcoholic electrician who's got a lot of wonderful qualities, but you can't stop thinking of another cute, charming, alcoholic electrician from your past, and wishing you were out with him instead. I didn't think this book was so hilarious, and the romance was really cheesy and flat for me. This Florida crime genre seems to be romance-that-it's-okay-for-dudes-to-read, and Leonard writes better romances than the one in here. I also just like his books a whole lot more in general. Maybe it isn't fair to compare them, especially since I've only read this one, but that's who I was thinking of while I was with Carl: Elmore! So there it is....Also, I enjoyed this book, but I was annoyed by some aspects of it. There wasn't much tension or suspense. You basically knew what was going on from the beginning, so there wasn't much to find out; the husband was a dick, and it didn't make sense that she would've married him, but she did, so that was that. The heroine was insanely rich, which can be done well, but here it just kind of made everything way too easy, plus the author's constant naming of the various designers she was wearing felt kind of distracting and unnatural to me; he'd be like, "Then she bought a blue silk Michael Kors miniskirt, which she looked great in." And you're like, "Well, it sucks about the Everglades, but other than that, is there really a problem here?" But then you're like, "Who cares, this is awesome, I'm on vacation."Still, all in all, it was very enjoyable, and I 'd recommend this book for someone interested in a madcap caper kind of thing for a beach kind of situation. I would not recommend reading this in the dead of winter if you're someplace cold, because that'd probably make you depressed and bitter.Should I make an effort to stop comparing him unfavorably to Leonard, and read more Hiassen? People (e.g., Jen, Mom) love him. If so, what's good?
What do You think about Skinny Dip (2006)?
Carl Hiaasen's books are, hands down, the best Florida postcards in the market. Let me explain: I take it every bastard out there knows what sunny Florida is all about: gators, tan, beaches, girls in bikini, huge fuck-off yachts with girls in bikini, flashy cars with girls in bikini, Hulk Hogan in bikini, more girls in bikini surrounding Hulk Hogan in bikini, and all that. Also, bikini shops with girls in bikini shopping for more bikinis. At least that's what "Miami Vice" has taught me. That said, Carl Hiaasen writes about Floridians, apparently some of the most... er... "colourful" people you may meet on Earth. And I mean that in a good way.Now, wait a minute, there was something else I wanted to say about the novel but, given it's kind of late, I have forgotten all about it. Kind of pisses me off, y'know. I was like, "Oh, I'm going to write this and that. Aye! Everybody will think I'm witty. Go me!" but now I'm sitting here, calling the screen all the known names on earth. Alzheimer maybe. And Tourette.So anyway, "Skinny Dip" is a fun book. It's about some idiot who wants to kill his wife but fails miserably; then he tries to kill another two people but, being an absolute dim witted moron bastard, fails again. By the way, I've never been to Florida. But I want to go. Floridians in Carl Hiaasen's books are badass.
—Twerking To Beethoven
Hiaasen with a heart. I enjoyed this book enormously, just for the sheer silliness of it. And there was a cameo appearance of Skink!!! My only complaint is that I read it at night so that my dreams became quite Hiaasenesque. Actually, my favorite character was Tool, the hirsute hit man. (Well, he's not really a hit man, but the alliteration was just too good to miss!)Amazon Editorial Review:Charles "Chaz" Perrone fancies himself a take-charge kind of guy. So when this "biologist by default" suspects that his curvaceous wife, Joey, has stumbled onto a profitable pollution scam he's running on behalf of Florida agribusiness mogul Red Hammernut, he sets out right away to solve the problem--by heaving Joey off the deck of a luxury cruise liner and into the Atlantic Ocean, far from Key West. But--whoops!--Joey, a former swimming champ, doesn't drown. Instead, as Carl Hiaasen tells in his 10th adult novel, Skinny Dip, she makes her way back to shore, thanks both to a wayward bale of Jamaican marijuana and lonerish ex-cop Mick Stranahan (Skin Tight, 1989), and then launches a bogus blackmail campaign that's guaranteed to drive her lazy, libidinous hubby into a self-protective frenzy.You've got to hand it to Hiaasen: He's perfected a formula for crisply written, satirical crime fiction that makes the best use of imaginatively repulsive villains, as well as less thoroughly venal scoundrels and victims who ultimately overcome their antagonists, all while stumping for the preservation of Florida's environment, particularly the Everglades. In Skinny Dip, we find Chaz (who'd rather be golfing than puttering around the "hot, buggy, funky-smelling and treacherous" reaches of nature) falsifying water samples to help Hammernut turn the 'Glades into "God's septic tank." That scheme, though, is endangered not just by Joey's sudden disappearance, but by the suspicions of a python-loving police detective and Chaz's own outstanding inability to tame his Viagra-enhanced tumescence. Even by assigning Chaz a baby-sitter--the hulking, hirsute, and painkiller-addicted Tool--Hammernut can't keep his pet biologist out of trouble. As Joey and Stranahan unfold their revenge plot, and Tool's conscience grows in competition with Chaz's ego, the reader can only marvel at the extent of the train wreck ahead.
—bookczuk
This was my first shot at a Carl Hiaasen book. I bought it last year when we were in Naples, and I finally cracked it open this month. It's good to read stuff like this when you're in the dead of a Chicago winter (although one of the characters ached throughout the book to move from Florida to Minnseota). Skinny Dip is a fun, light read that moves quickly and easily. I have to say, though, that the plot got bogged down with too many characters, too many agendas, and too many plot offshoots, watering down what started as a really fun premise (callow husband throws his wife off a cruise boat, wife seeks revenge). But it was still a fun read, and like I said, there's nothing like reading about wacky people in the Sunshine State when you're facing gray Chicago skies and 20 degree days. Maybe I should back up a bit and explain: Hiaasen writes about Florida, and has a special affinity for environmental issues, wildlife, and the future of the Everglades. At least in this book, he is pro-salt of the earth people who are generally respectful and conscious of their environment, and against superficial jackasses, corporate polluters, and bad people in general. Not a particularly controversial set of values, but it makes for some amusing and witty entertainment on the El. I bet it's also fun to read on the beach. Maybe I'll try another one in January. Last thing: This book featured a character who wasn't good at much, but did have a certain sexual prowess, and Hiaasen seemed to enjoy finding different ways to describe the character's central asset, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
—Jordan
