Stormy Weather
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Product Description
A seductive con artiste stumbles into a scam that promises more cool cash than the lottery. A shot-gun toting mobile home salesman is about to close a deal with disaster, while tourists by the thousands bail from the Florida Keys. They are now entering the hurricane zone, where hell and hilarity rule. And in the hands of the masterful, merciless Carl Hiaasen, everyone is in for some stormy weather!
Spotlight Customer Reviews:
Summary:
This just didn't work for me...
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Comment:
This is the second Hiaasen novel I've read, and based on the word-of-mouth about him in general and the reviews for this book in particular, I felt especially let down. My giving it 3 stars is actually generous.
Perhaps the book was just built up too much, or maybe I'm just jaded, but this novel never really engaged me. I could have put it down after 100 pages and not felt bad or any lack of "closure" for not knowing what happens. Then again, I enjoy "quirky" and "off-beat" literature, and this struck me as a mainstream book **trying** to be off-beat for mainstream readers. Maybe I just have a higher threshold for such stuff.
There are several reasons why this didn't click with me. First and foremost, almost every character in here annoyed me. Let me be clear and clarify/contrast that: a well-written book designs antagonists that we are obviously not supposed to like and secretly hope they get a "come-uppance". That isn't what happened here: everyone (heroes and villains) were simply irritating--without actually being **interesting**, and I simply wished they'd go away so someone more interessting would come along.
Going hand-in-hand with that, the antagonists consistently suffered from "willful stupidity" -- they would do dumb things that were obviously dumb and served no purpose except plot convenience, because if they had a few more brain cells to rub together they wouldn't be in whatever situation there was and the book would grind to a halt. That may or may not be lazy writing, but to me it's certainly frustrating: I enjoy my villains to have a mind and a master plan that's interesting.
Lastly, the book is about 100 pages longer than it needs to be, and since it had already worn out its welcome by that point it seemed especially tedious to me. Again, I could have walked away from this by then with a clean conscience, but the only thing preventing me from doing so was that there wasn't anything else handy for me to read at the time.
I can see why mainstream readers might think Hiaasen in general and this book in particular are funny and off-beat, but since I read a lot of that type of stuff anyway, this is a sub-par offering. For instance, Tim Dorsey does the same type of thing, but much, much better.
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Summary:
Wacky and Captive
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Comment:
This is my first Hiaasen novel and won't be my last. The story moves fast and the characters are difficult to keep up with at first. Finally it clicked in for me and I was able to identify the main characters, ancillary characters and settings. Very descriptive scenery and good character development. More of an adventure although impossible in real life (mine, anyway)and I am sure the characters resemble real people living somewhere even as wacky as they were, but not in my unexciting suburban area. The humor comes from imagining the scenes as described and the predicaments each main character gets him/herself into as well as the thinking processes they exhibit. It was eating road kill that clouded the overall ambience...
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Summary:
Skink for President!
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Comment:
[...]
When I first read this book, it was back when it had the flamingo on the cover, so it has been awhile. But my opinion about the book has not changed.
Having gone through Hurricane Andrew in Homestead, this book touched more than a nerve. Only those that have dealt with tragedy like this, from both Mother Nature and humans, truly understand the heart-ache and anger that is felt. It's not contrived, it is not in our heads, but something that we lived with for a long time.
Between tourists, scammers, developers and politicians, Florida (and our country), needs heroes that will stand up and do what is needed for the right reasons - and greed isn't it.
I have thoroughly enjoyed all of Carl Hiaasen's books that I've read, and I've only missed 5, this one though, is at the top of my list for showing just what it was like living in South Florida after the hurricane.
Having read through the reviews, I have to say, it was amusing to read how some reviewers say that what happened in the book is basically far-fetched. Well, having hunted for escaped monkeys, sat up with rifle in lap for my turn at watch, paid $10.00 for a bag of ice, learned to cook pretty much anything on a grill, far-fetched was close to reality.
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Summary:
Tops among over the top Hiassen satires
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Comment:
I've read almost every Hiassen book I could get my hands on, after my initiation with what I still think is Hiassen's top masterpiece of satire: "Skin Tight"Skin Tight and not one has disappointed.
But in "Stormy Weather" Hiassen absolutely outdid himself with 1. his villain Snapper, and Snapper's fate in the end. 2. The relentless hilarity of the scenes at the hurricane site featuring Snapper and Edie, and 3. in the way he painted his female protagonist Edie...She is top contender for 1st prize in Hiassen's gallery of the 'lovable "bad girl" Her "type" is very effectively delivered to us in many of his other tales--this girl IS bad...she'll do just about anything it takes to get rich and famous..BUT she draws some lines in selling her soul, and when she joins the ranks of female vigilantes, and turns on her villain pals, look out! In this book's cool ex of this Hiassen signature plot twist, Edie's pal Snapper makes the huge mistake of trying to ride THIS vamp! Cause the designing girl may forgive and collude with the crooks for money, but cuts them into little pieces and feeds them to the crocodiles when they foolishly try to con her in a pathetic male predator sally driven by their grandiose ego! (another fave ex of this female 'antiheroine' is found in Skinny Dip"Skinny Dip) Edie is the Queen of these designing babes turned heroines! This book is a very good Hiassen meal!
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Summary:
A Great Intro to Hiassen and Why I Love Florida
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Comment:
I don't care what you say about L.A., South Florida (the east coast) is its own uniquely twisted universe. Other than the late Charles Willeford, no one captures this more accurately, vividly and hilariously than Carl Hiaasen. "Stormy Weather", written in 1995, is the zanier side of the truly horrific Hurricane Andrew, a vicious satire of the darker side of my beloved Sunshine State, a poke in the eye of the public servants and developers who built a world of match-stick homes and those who sough to profit from it. As we all know, "Andy" unceremoniously turned over a large "rock" called Dade County (now Miami-Dade) from under which and toward which all manner of predatory, unsavory, corrupt and colorful creatures, masquerading as humans, scurried and hurried in the thousands looking to pull the brass ring of easy money from a shocked and traumatized citizenry.
Hiaasen's cast of folks in this novel is one of his better and more memorable ensembles. A semi-feral, road-kill-eating, swamp-dwelling, poison toad sweat ("raw DMT") smoking, Henry Miller-quoting ex-governor of the State known as "captain", a sexy brunette down on her luck from an unsuccessful campaign to seduce and blackmail a Kennedy clan member, a crooked-jawed, ex-con "Poster Boy for TMJ" named "Snapper", an obnoxious and obsessed advertising exec and his new bride caught up in the "adventure" of the hurricane disaster, a skull juggling ex-law student, two needy and yapping miniature dachshunds named "Donald and Marla," an Asian scorpion named "Mortimer," and other perfectly-believeable supporting characters of various eccentric and fetching attributes, come together by various twists of coincidence to turn a botched insurance scam, a bizarre abduction and natural catastrophe into high adventure and scathing satire at every turn.
This is an irreverent, deftly imagined and executed novel, full of good writing, great dialog and sustained movement. If you want to know how to put a novel together seamlessly (as well as enjoy a great read), "Stormy Weather" fills the bill. I couldn't put it down.
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