Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Flush

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Flush – Carl Hiaasen

A few years ago my cousin, who was 8 or 10 at the time, was raving about the book Hoot by Carl Hiaasen.  She was such a fan that I had to read it to see what the hubbub was about.   It was a story about some teenagers who did some somewhat illegal things to save the habitats of burrowing owls from a big corporation.  I totally enjoyed it!  I can’t remember if it had won the Newbery Honor yet or not, when I read it, but it definitely deserves a Newbery!

What I didn’t know when I read Hoot was that Carl Hiassen was a prolific novelist!  I started reading some of his adult books.  I totally enjoyed Nature Girl, Skinny Dip and Lucky You.   Because I’m anal and once I start reading an author I feel the need to read read everything they wrote, so even though some of his other books aren’t as good as the 1st few I have stuck with him.  All of his books are set in Florida and all have an environmental spin.  He is also the master of bizarre characters and bizarre events which leave me laughing every time, even if the book isn’t very good!   His book are very “adult'” – most of them are R rated for violence, sex, and language. 

Hiaasen, like many other authors, also writes newspaper columns and had published some of his columns into a book, 2 books actually.  I started reading one of them Paradise Screwed, in my Kindle.   It wasn’t what I was hoping it would be.  It was very political.  Most of the politics were stuff I could get into, like saving the Keys or protecting the Everglades, but it still wasn’t very interesting to me so I gave up on it. 

Since writing Hoot, Hiaasen has written 2 other young adult books – Flush and Scat.  I knew I wanted to read them both, but the library had Flush the last time I was there!

Now that I have read so many of Hiaasen’s adult novels I was curious to see how he pulled off YA.  Interestingly it was just like his adult works, only cleaned up.  There was less humor and the bizarre factor was greatly reduced, but it was good solid read.  It had adventure, saving the plant, suspense, surprises, and great family dynamics!

100_Reading_Challenge library-rc

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