Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen

Finally I met another book that makes me hooked.
It's been a long time since I read a book almost non-stop. It's even been longer since I found a book that makes me wants to re-read it immediately after I finished it.
I found this gem hidden among old tattered books at the book sale at Gramedia. I was curious because one of my group reading choices is another book by the same author titled Bad Monkey. I haven't read Bad Monkey at the time I purchased Skinny Dip - I just started it now because I like Skinny Dip so much. I had some reservations before purchased it (never read any works by this author, can spend the money on other things), but all those reservations gone BAM after I read this sentence:

I married an asshole, she thought, knifing headfirst into the waves.

Those words are enough. I was owned immediately and brought this book to the cashier and paid it without hesitation.

And boy, it's worth every rupiahs I spent. Absolutely no regret. My thanks to the original owner who was willing to depart with this precious book so someone else can enjoy this refreshing reading.

The book is fast-paced and exciting. The author manages to tell us, his readers, about big bad environmental problem without using too much technical lingo. Neither does he make us yawn. Bravo. He successfully keep the issue from being lost along the storytelling, because the issue itself is an important part of the story. So it keeps echoing from the first time it was mentioned until the ending.

The characters feel original for me. I rarely sympathize with female character who is rich, smart, beautiful, getting true love, and likes to shopping branded things, but this is one of the rare moment. I don't know why, but I find Joey Perrone is extremely likable. All the protagonists are likable.

The antagonists themselves have some qualities that make them less fearsome and disgusting. They are admittedly not likable. But they are laughable. Especially Chaz Perrone. Gosh. This is the first time I see a man as shallow as he is and a biologist that hates nature as he does. A biologist that litters, runs over snakes with his expensive Hummer, and hates nature? LOL. He is everything that every biologists (or soon-to-be) I know are not.

I highly recommend this book for anyone feeling that he/she can use a good laugh and biologists (or biologists-to-be) so they can be more dedicated to their work, using Chaz Perrone as reflection of WHO YOU SHOULD NOT BECOME.

Perfect ten stars.