Star Island [Hardcover] chapter Summaries:
From Publishers Weekly
The career of singer Cheryl Bunterman (aka Cherry Pye), who debuted with Jailbait Records at age 15, is foundering due to her lack of talent and indiscriminate appetite for drugs, booze, and sex in this outrageous, offbeat novel from Hiaasen (Nature Girl). Among those struggling to keep Cherry’s career afloat are her mother, Janet Bunterman; producer Maury Lykes; and “undercover stunt double” Ann DeLusia, who will, say, mislead the press into thinking Cherry is out and about when she’s really in rehab. Hiaasen has easy targets in misbehaving celebrity sightings, tabloid stalkings, and spin control experts, and he makes the most of them. Crooked real estate developer Jackie Sebago and paparazzo Bang Abbott, who plans to hitch his wagon to Cherry’s star, add to the madcap fun. Mayhem follows after Bang kidnaps Ann instead of Cherry by mistake, and ex-Florida governor and eco-vigilante Clinton “Skink” Tyree, who was smitten with Ann after a chance encounter, rushes to her rescue. The torrent of pop culture barbs are bound to please Hiaasen’s ardent fans. 500,000 first printing; 12-city author tour.
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Review
“Carl Hiaasen [is] Florida’s most entertainingly indignant social critic . . . He presents us with Cherry Pye, a 22-year-old pop star whose every display of narcissistic excess will send a frisson of horrified delight up your spine . . . The outlandish events soar on the exuberance of Hiaasen’s manic style, a canny blend of lunatic farce and savage satire.”
—New York Times Book Review
“Does anyone remember what we did for fun before novelist Carl Hiaasen began turning out his satirical comedies one after another after another? . . . Star Island is a concoction worth the time of any reader who wants quality entertainment.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Hiaasen reclaims his groove in Star Island, a wicked, fizzy sendup of American celebrity culture . . . A very funny book about life in the fast lane.”
—Boston Globe
“Fans of Carl Hiaasen will feel right at home when they plunge into Star Island. There’s the familiar collection of deliciously tawdry characters, each angling for a piece of the action in Florida . . . And there’s the fast-moving plot, and the writing that makes you laugh out loud . . . Hiaasen has turned out another gem. Readers of his previous novels can settle in for more wacky fun in the Florida sun.”
—Associated Press
“A wild and fun Sunshine State ride.”
—New York Post
“Hiaasen is at his gleeful best skewering the morally bankrupt. He has plenty to poke fun at here, from a reprehensible real-estate developer with an excruciating groin injury to twin publicists Botoxed within an inch of their lives. This is classic Hiaasen—demented, hilarious, and utterly over the top.”
—Booklist (starred)
“An outrageous, offbeat novel . . . The torrent of pop culture barbs are bound to please Hiaasen’s ardent fans.”
—Publishers Weekly
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