Star Island

OK. Hiaasen is a lot of fun--and Star Island is fun--but the last couple of books are running thin. I enjoyed his earlier books--especially Skin Tight, Double Whammy, Stormy Weather, and Skinny Dip--a lot more. There's ust too much name dropping and brand name dropping in Star Island for my tastes. Yes, it is a book about modern notions of fame, stardom, and the paparazzi, and the inherent absurdity of it all, but it does leave me kind of cold.

Two of Hiaasen's previous characters return in Star Island--Skink and Chemo--but outside of Skink's tying a sea urchin onto the balls of the condo developer, or his taking a shit in the washing machine of his former lieutenant governor, he seems out of place. And, Hiaasen keeps reiterating the absurdity of Skink's appearance, almost as if her were padding the book. Chemo comes off a lot less creepy than his previous appearance in Skin Tight, and even achieves a certain amount of compassion in his refusal to kill Bang Abbott, the paparazzo, or Ann DeLusia, the double for Cherry Pye. Ann is really the only sensible character in the book, and it's her story that drives the novel. Cherry Pye is a complete caricature of stardom--think Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton--although it is hard to think caricature with the likes of them on the loose. Cherry's parents and her agent are the real culprits, in a sense, as they lead blood sucking lives leeching on their daughter's stardom. And she has no talent to begin with. Keeping her straight and sober, and cleaning up the messes when she doesn't, forms the major part of the book, and it's all doomed to failure until the end of the book when Ann steps in and forces sobriety on Cherry. Of course, it was hard to keep a straight face when Linday Lohan's father announced that he was opening an addiction facility this past week--he could have stepped straight out of this novel.

So Star Island turned out to be a pretty forgettable book. It started off with some promise, but then it started to lose direction and ended up tying up a lot of loose ends when the rest of the story didn't coalesce. Maybe Hiaasen should write about novelist who can no longer bring their A game to the table with the distractions of living up to their own fame.

Author: Hiaasen, Carl

Date Published: 2010

Length: 11hr 31min

Narrator: Hoye, Stephen