If you are looking for a book that will take you to a wickedly funny place and make you laugh out loud, then I highly recommend Carl Hiaasen's new book, Bad Monkey, to you.
I just finished reading it while on vacation at the beach last week and I loved it! I can't tell you how many times I was sitting in my beach chair with my book while my friends were talking and catching up with each other. There I was, face stuck in the book, reading Bad Monkey and literally bursting out laughing at the smart, flip and hysterical dialogue. Truly great stuff!
Come on. Admit it. You can't always read heavy, informational, historical books that you know will keep you up to date about what is happening in this crazy world of ours. Sometimes you just have to read something for the pure unadulterated fun of it because laughing helps you de-stress and triggers positive emotions. Laughing is definitely an energy and mood booster! I usually experience my best laughs when I am relaxed. Things just aren't that funny when you are tense, twisted and closed up.
Carl Hiaasen's gift to us as readers is that he always manages to create fabulous characters in all of his books and they always end up in a lot of wacky situations. Given that Hiaasen writes a column for The Miami Herald, I have a feeling that he probably knows some of these people he writes about or has taken bits and pieces of different people's personalities he comes in contact with as a reporter and thankfully creates new people in his fabulous fiction.
I don't want to reveal the places in the book where I couldn't stop laughing because you really need to know the plot and the characters of Bad Monkey and allow them to cook together for a number of chapters before it truly becomes funny. However, just to give you a flavor of Hiaasen's satire, here's a short excerpt involving the main character, Andrew Yancy, and Yancy's love interest, Rosa:
"Rosa looked irresistible as she walked up Yancy's front steps, but he was in too much discomfort to make a move, even after she changed into a devastating sundress.
While she inspected the knot on his skull, he said, "Know what? We'd make a great crime-solving duo."
"How much have you had to drink?"
"Have mercy, woman. I ran out of Advil."
"Well, I don't sleep with drunken guys. Period."
Yancy sighed. "So many rules."
She took notice of the shotgun propped in a corner, and Yancy told her restaurant inspections could be dangerous. She informed him that for dinner she was doing blackened grouper with mashed sweet potatoes and a grilled Caesar, and that he was going to finish every bite or never see her again.
"I also stopped in Key Largo and got some homemade carrot cake," she said.
"From where?"
"What's the difference?"
"Rosa, you don't understand. I see all the health reports. I know the dirt on every kitchen."
She ordered him to be quiet while she sewed up his gnawed butt cheek. To take his mind off the intimate unpleasantries, Yancy told the story of how he was conceived during side of one of Abbey Road.
"You mean side two," Rosa said. "The medley."
"No, side one. According to my mom, the big moment happened during Maxwell's Silver Hammer."
"It's all starting to make sense," said Rosa.
Besides Hiaasen's dry and snappy dialogue, Bad Monkey takes us on some unpredictable trips through Florida, where Hiaasen was born and raised, and also to the Bahamas where "everyting is jahmmin'."
Bad Monkey is a everything I wanted it to be: a great read and a fun, wonderful escape!
Carl Hiaasen never disappoints.
