Name: Native Tongue
ISBN: 9780446695701

Carl Hiaasen

Now reissued--one of the most beloved novels by the "New York Times" bestselling author in which dedicated, if somewhat demented, environmentalists battle sleazy real estate developers in the Florida Keys.

Native Tongue

Sarah Sammis

I've now read just over half of Carl Hiaasen's novels. I've come to the conclusion that I prefer his more recent work and always his juvenile fiction. The cut off point seems to be about 2000, although I did enjoy most of Lucky You (1997).

Native Tongue being one of the earliest of his novels (#4) has many of the same themes as his later ones: environmentalism, corruption, animal rights, and big business. The big business in this case is a mob run amusement park with a desire to be bigger than Disney no matter the cost.

On the other side of the fence are a pair of thugs working for a crazy environmentalist. Her cause may be just but her methods aren't much better than head of the Amazing Kingdom.

The book suffers from too large a cast of characters and too many side plots. I ended up skipping around to the characters who interested me the most.

Jeff James

An entertaining if odd environmentally-aware crime comedy. I like the style, and I enjoyed the book, but it also felt a bit like environmentalist propaganda. I've got more Hiaasen books on my shelf to read, and I'm definitely going to read more of his stuff, but I wonder now if everything he's written is focused on environmentalism.