Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen

Nature Girl is about a woman who doesn't take the adequate medicine and therefore tends to go off on one whatever it may be. In the beginning of the book we learn that Honey Santana has just lost her job for losing her temper with her fiddely boss and subsequently hit him in the family jewels with a wooden mallet (used for cracking stone-crab claws with). You can't help yourself from liking a woman who doesn't just turn around and bitch slap the jerk but she properly whacks him as if she had an ass-hard piñata in front of her. And as if that isn't enough she is later in the day called up by a telemarketer guy (and we know how horribly annoying they can be) and as he interrupts her dinner she decides to do a bit of revenge by flying him down to Florida in pretence of him winning a free trip and there take him out to the swamp and teach him a lesson. Obviously things won't be as straight forward as that as they encounter several characters on their way in the swamp such as Sammy Tigertail, a blue eyed Seminole, who is making himself scarce after a tourist dies on him (heart attack) and the college student who forces Tigertail to take her hostage after encountering him in the swamp and that's just to get away from her rotten boyfriend...

This isn't the first book I've read by Mr Hiaasen and every time I do read one I think to myself: "Am I going to get another one? No, probably not." And then I go out and buy another book by him.There's something I can't really put my finger on with Hiaasen's books. It's almost a love/hate kind of relationship. I find them funny but not in the same way as some critics do -apparently they're rolling around on the floor whilst reading. I don't do that but still I am fantastically intrigued by the characters and plots. I once watched an episode of CBS 60 minutes where they interviewed Hiaasen and apparently he rips out [and saves] tiny articles about people and their ongoings to put to use at some point in his writing. It's a brilliant idea and that's probably why the characters are so kooky but enchantingly real. I for one would be a perfect character in a Hiaasen book and that says it all.

I do recommend reading C. Hiaasen's books. You don't need to read them in a specific order but some characters appear in several books. I started with Skinny Dip and that was a great book and perhaps a bit better than Nature Girl.