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Star Island / Carl Hiaasen

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Get ready for another wild and crazy romp through south Florida, where the characters are always larger than life, and in spite of the plunging real estate market, developers still stomp on the environment.

Cherry Pye (real name Cheryl Bunterman) is a pop diva like a bad-Britney who doesn’t have a lot of talent or brains. As she parties her way to oblivion, her parents employ a body double to keep up appearances. A particularly obsessive paparazzo stalks Cherry Pye, and in the ensuing confusion of who is the starlet and who is the double, there is a lot of keystone cops mayhem. Hiaasen’s characters are caricatures, always over-the-top, but also somehow believable. The narrative line of Star Island, which is big on satire, lurches around a bit and I’m not sure the environmental theme ever really meshes with the bad pop star storyline, but it’s a fun read nonetheless.


This was the first full book I read as an eBook on my Nook, and for that it represented a bit of a milestone for me.

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