Yay or Nay? Yay! (74%)

 

Consensus: Full of humour and satire, Hiassen’s new novel will truly be enjoyed by his fans, even if it is a little too long. Personally, it’s going on my wish list.

Genres: Comic Lit | Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Mystery & Thrillers | Thrillers

Description: Meet twenty-two-year-old Cherry Pye (née Cheryl Bunterman), a pop star since she was fourteen — and about to attempt a comeback from her latest drug-and-alcohol disaster.
 
Now meet Cherry again: in the person of her “undercover stunt double,” Ann DeLusia. Ann portrays Cherry whenever the singer is too “indisposed” — meaning wasted — to go out in public. And it is Ann-mistaken-for-Cherry who is kidnapped from a South Beach hotel by obsessed paparazzo Bang Abbott.
 
Now the challenge for Cherry’s handlers (über–stage mother; horndog record producer; nipped, tucked, and Botoxed twin publicists; weed whacker–wielding bodyguard) is to rescue Ann while keeping her existence a secret from Cherry’s public — and from Cherry herself.
 
The situation is more complicated than they know. Ann has had a bewitching encounter with Skink — the unhinged former governor of Florida living wild in a mangrove swamp—and now he’s heading for Miami to find her…
 
Will Bang Abbott achieve his fantasy of a lucrative private photo session with Cherry Pye? Will Cherry sober up in time to lip-synch her way through her concert tour? Will Skink track down Ann DeLusia before Cherry’s motley posse does?
 
All will be revealed in this hilarious spin on life in the celebrity fast lane. … [more]

Shop online for “Star Island” by Carl Hiaasen:

16 Book Reviews for “Star Island” by Carl Hiaasen

• “Star Island” being a Carl Hiaasen novel, we’re going to get the good, the bad and the worst…. “Star Island” the novel has car chases, kidnapping and gunshots, to say nothing of the weedwhacker arm, but the narrative is more sunny side down than hard-boiled. Hiaasen won’t be in the running for the Mystery Writers of America’s annual Edgar award. But he’s earned a set of brass orbs for trying to satirize the self-satirizing Miley Cyrus-Britney Spears cohort. If you don’t believe that, try Googling “Cherry Pye.”
  Published the 25th day of July, 2010 in The Miami Herald | Reviewed by Betsy Willeford | Full Review
  
• All of this is enjoyable. But some of it creaks. It seems just dimly possible that the craziness of celebrity culture has outstripped Mr. Hiaasen’s ability to make fun of it, since the real Lindsay Lohan story puts Cherry’s old-school antics in the shade.
  Published the 20th day of July, 2010 in The New York Times | Reviewed by Janet Maslin | Full Review
  
• Enough other grotesques to make up a Sherwood Anderson hometown story cycle pile on this plot, which Hiaasen milks for all it’s worth. It’s not exactly the milk of human kindness, but it’s a concoction worth the time of any reader who wants quality entertainment.
  Published the 30th day of July, 2010 in San Francisco Chronicle | Reviewed by Alan Cheuse | Full Review
  
• Carl Hiaasen reclaims his groove in “Star Island,” a wicked, fizzy sendup of American celebrity culture. More than three years after issuing the lazy “Nature Girl,” Hiaasen returns in fine form, far more consistently on the money than Bang Abbott, the unlikely driver of this very funny book about life in the fast lane.
  Published the 29th day of July, 2010 in The Boston Globe | Reviewed by Carlo Wolff | Full Review
  
• It’s a long story, and while Hiaasen tells it with his customary brio, it feels a little forced. The scenes between Ann and Bang have no snap, and Skink really doesn’t have much to do. It’s fun to look at the paparazzi from both sides,.. but other than this rhythmic list, Hiaasen doesn’t bring anything fresh to the table.
  Published the 31st day of July, 2010 in The Oregonian | Reviewed by Jeff Baker | Full Review
  
• What keeps “Star Island” from ascending to the author’s upper echelon is the op-ed staleness that clings to its satire. Wandering outside his tropic comfort zone, Hiaasen hasn’t come up with any insights more lancing than this: Show business is phony. Which, in addition to being old news, is seriously beside the point.
  Published the 27th day of July, 2010 in The Washington Post | Reviewed by Louis Bayard | Full Review
  
• Trying to follow the plot, which involves a supporting cast of crooked politicians and predatory developers, is a little like walking a puppy. But the outlandish events soar on the exuberance of Hiaasen’s manic style, a canny blend of lunatic farce and savage satire.
  Published the 30th day of July, 2010 in The New York Times | Reviewed by Marilyn Stasio | Full Review
  
• The torrent of pop culture barbs are bound to please Hiaasen’s ardent fans.
  Published in Publishers Weekly
  
• It may go on a bit too long, but Hiaasen’s command of the machinery of farce is impressive. The subplots dovetail with satisfying clicks, and the cast of characters includes colorful oddities such as Fremont Spores, a lonely geek who listens to police scanners 24/7 and sells information to anyone who will pay him — reporters, detectives, gangsters or paparazzi like Bang…. Scene after scene, Hiaasen keeps up this kind of antic embroidery, proving not only that God may be in the details but also that comedy most certainly is.
  Published the 2nd day of August, 2010 in Los Angeles Times | Reviewed by Michael Harris | Full Review
  
• So to see him take a step toward the more popular vein of celebutard trash culture with Star Island is a touch deflating….Hiaasen is on firmer ground with his far-more sympathetic locals, especially likable ex-gov “Skink” Tyree. You’re still in the hands of a master, but this time out he merely wants to play in the sandbox.
  Published the 22nd day of July, 2010 in Time Out New York | Reviewed by Joshua Rothkopf | Full Review
  
• “Star Island” is so funny that you might not notice how many moving parts it has. (Think of the Marx Brothers, only with a lot more sex and profanity.) Hiaasen is a miniature clockmaker who works in big gestures, and he deserves credit for pulling off such a nifty piece of work. But we can all be excused for being distracted by a little harmless celebrity schadenfreude.
  Published the 1st day of August, 2010 in Richmond Times-Dispatch | Reviewed by Doug Childers | Full Review
  
• Yes, it’s Hiaasen, and he’s turned out another gem. Readers of his previous novels like “Nature Girl,” “Skinny Dip” and “Sick Puppy” can settle in for more wacky fun in the Florida sun.
  Published the 31st day of July, 2010 in Associated Press | Reviewed by Malcolm Ritter | Full Review
  
• The newly published “Star Island” … is a savage and frequently hilarious send-up of celebrity culture set in Miami’s South Beach.
  Published the 1st day of August, 2010 in The Toronto Star | Reviewed by Vit Wagner | Full Review
  
• Clueless celebrities and criminal paparazzi provide the perfect match and the perfect metaphor for contemporary public culture. And you never know which sentences are going to end with a back flip.
  Published the 1st day of July, 2010 in Kirkus Reviews | Full Review
  
• For one thing, most of his characters are caricatures at best, and outrageous caricatures at that. Then, there’s his plot, whimsical and violent but wildly unrealistic. And in matters of taste, this book comes up dreadfully short — for instance, in the name and décor of a South Beach nightclub. A family newspaper can talk specifically about neither.
  Published the 25th day of July, 2010 in St. Louis Post-Dispatch | Reviewed by Harry Levins | Full Review
  
• The real-life, well-chronicled excesses of Spears, Lohan…. But I suspect it will be readers not entirely up-to-date on the latest celebrity nose dives who will most enjoy Star Island. It offers a comic taste of what they’ve been missing.
  Published the 2nd day of August, 2010 in USA Today | Reviewed by Bob Minzesheimer | Full Review
  

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 6th, 2010 at 8:02 AM and is filed under:
Comic Lit, Fiction, Literature & Fiction, Mystery & Thrillers, Thrillers.

Tags: Alan Cheuse, Associated Press, Betsy Willeford, Bob Minzesheimer, book review, Carl Hiaasen, Carlo Wolff, Doug Childers, Harry Levins, Janet Maslin, Jeff Baker, Joshua Rothkopf, Kirkus Reviews, literary criticism, Los Angeles Times, Louis Bayard, Malcolm Ritter, Marilyn Stasio, Michael Harris, Publishers Weekly, Richmond Times-Dispatch, San Francisco Chronicle, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Star Island, The Boston Globe, The Miami Herald, The New York Times, The Oregonian, The Toronto Star, The Washington Post, Time Out New York, USA Today, Vit Wagner

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