Not the strongest of Hiaasen's novels, but not at all bad. It contains the usual collection of quirky, somewhat grotesque characters that Hiaasen populates his books with, and also as usual he uses them to comment acidicly on society, culture and the degradation of Florida. Its an entertaining read, but a big step down from Skin Tight, Basket Case, Lucky You or Stormy Weather.

This is another dependable comedy from Hiaasen and it delivers everything that his readers would expect - neurotic characters with weird quirks, ridiculous capers, far-flung conspiracies that come together in absurd ways, the unique culture of backwoods Floridians, and some messages on the absurdities of modern society. Hiaasen also has a real gift for sarcastic comedy mixed with occasional and effective snippets of drama, and this book delivers in that regard as well. Readers who are new to Hiaasen will find this book perfectly hilarious and will surely wish to explore his works further, though returning fans will find some repeating patterns. Like some previous reviewers I found many parallels with "Sick Puppy" in particular, with the main capers developing in similar ways, and with this novel's unstable but loveable heroine Honey Santana pretty much acting as a female version of Twilly Spree. This book's female characters (especially Honey) also exhibit a lot of unlikely personality quirks that seem forced and not too well grounded in reality. In any case, this novel still works well as a rip-roaring comedy for new readers, plus established Hiaasen fans who are happy with dependability. [~doomsdayer520~]

Carl Hiaasen's NATURE GIRL is frequently described as a suspenseful but comic mystery. In truth it is predictable, unfunny, and is not a mystery at all.

The plot centers on Honey Santana, who completely snaps when her dinner is disrupted by a rude telemarketer. She sets out to teach him a lesson by luring him and his bored mistress to Florida; little does she know, however, that the couple are being pursued by a private detective or that she is being persued by a sexual stalker. They, along with her son, her ex-husband, a half-breed Seminole, a flaky college girl, and a weird by harmless religious sect all end up on Dismal Key, an insignificant island in the Ten Thousand Island chain on the western Florida coast.

If this sounds the least bit interesting, well, it isn't. The various characters are kooky stereotypes which might have picked out of a hat. They never came to life on the page and I never believed them. The plot is a predictable mishmash of kooky doings by aforesaid kooky characters; the humor rests on the kooky things they do and say. Add to this that Hiaasen's style is less subtle than a dose of salts and you've said all that need be said.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Excited to read this book but was quickly disappointed. Not a credible plot nor characters. First Hiiasen book I could not finish. Maybe time to change the formula?

A novel with a plot as weak as broth & a very predictable ending. It took 2/3 of the book to build up to what appeared to be some substance. That story substance never really happened. Hiassen has his group of misfits play out on an isolated island in the Everglades. Different lives somehow cleverly wind up there & become enmeshed in the manic plot set up by the OCD heroine, Honey Santana. Honey seeks to educate a bothersome telemarketer; more or less teach him a lesson. The island becomes over-run with misfits.
The quirky characters may have worked well in "Strip Tease". Here, the descriptions of their quirky lives is humorous, but they don't have much of a story to support them. They become tedious.
The deeper human side of the cast comes out. I believe that was the author's intention. Some parts were humorous which gained this 2 stars, rather than one. The most entertaining part for me was I read the unedited version before the mass produced novel was made. Save your time and money on this one. There's plenty of other good novels out there.
I was really surprised a NY Times Bestseller was this bad.

I bought this book on cd at a gas station just to make a long drive more enjoyable, but it had the opposite effect. What is going on? At first, I thought the author must have been so high when he wrote it that his completely failed attempts at humor seemed funny to him, but as this trainwreck of a story continues it seemed as if the person writing it did not know what words meant! The plot meanders from here to there with the purposefulness of a drunk monkey. The characters are, at best, boring and, at worst, capable of making suicide look like the best option. Toward the end I seriously had no idea what the characters were talking about. I think maybe he was randomly picking out words from the dictionary to construct a sentence. Maybe he was just trying to see if he could get paid for writing something worse than a kindergartener's first attempt at a story. However, near the end, the book became so nonsensical and so terrible I did start to laugh at how awful it was. Indeed, My fiancee and I still make jokes by quoting terrible lines from this book and derive a great deal of humor from ridiculing it. So...thanks for that Hiaasen. :) I wish I could rate this book in negative stars.