Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Star Island
    Unavailable
    Star Island
    Unavailable
    Star Island
    Audiobook11 hours

    Star Island

    Written by Carl Hiaasen

    Narrated by Jeff Harding

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    Twenty-two-year-old pop star Cherry Pye is attempting a comeback from her latest drug-fuelled disaster. Her 'stunt double' Ann travels everywhere with her, throwing paparazzi off the scent when they get too close.

    But one night, Ann's resemblance to Cherry Pye proves too convincing - she is kidnapped by an obsessed paparazzo who only realises his mistake once it is too late to go back...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. F. Howes Ltd
    Release dateDec 4, 2014
    ISBN9781471288012
    Unavailable
    Star Island
    Author

    Carl Hiaasen

    Carl Hiaasen (b. 1953) is the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of more than twenty adult and young adult novels and nonfiction titles, including the novels Strip Tease (1993) and Skinny Dip (2004), as well as the mystery-thrillers Powder Burn (1981), Trap Line (1982), and A Death in China (1984), which were cowritten with fellow Miami Herald journalist Bill Montalbano (1941–1998). Hiaasen is best known for his satirical writing and dark humor, much of which is directed at various social and political issues in his home state of Florida. He is an award-winning columnist for the Miami Herald, and lives in Vero Beach.

    More audiobooks from Carl Hiaasen

    Related to Star Island

    Related audiobooks

    Crime Thriller For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Joke’s on Tim Noakes

      May 20, 2021

      Joke’s on Tim Noakes
      4 min read

    • Article

      Fit the Description

      Sep 4, 2018

      Fit the Description
      10 min read

    • Article

      Faery Land

      Mar 24, 2020

      Faery Land
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Smoke of the Land Went Up

      Mar 4, 2024

      The Smoke of the Land Went Up
      11 min read

    • Article

      No-good Samaritans

      Jul 6, 2023

      An icy blast hit my face as I crouched in a dark doorway, pulling the three damp coats I had on tighter around me. ‘Any spare change, please?' I whimpered as people went into the 24-hour convenience shop behind me. It was November 2018, and I was hom

      4 min read

    • Article

      Ian Brady

      Jan 10, 2024

      In 1980, for one day only, I had an access-all-areas pass to Wormwood Scrubs Prison. Martine Burnaby, in whose house I was lodging, was a prison visitor, a volunteer who would go into the jail and liaise with inmates, represent their concerns to the

      2 min read

    • Article

      When Misfortune Strikes

      Apr 11, 2021

      When Misfortune Strikes
      2 min read

    • Article

      From A Notorious Chinese Red-light District To A Girl Chained Like A Dog: How Author's Probe Into Sex Slavery In Asia Helped Her Come To Terms With Her Korean Identity

      Mar 5, 2022

      On a cold winter's night in January 2013, Sylvia Yu Friedman drove an hour out of Kunming, China, to a small, dim-lit market in Yunnan province, on the border of Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. She and two other women were there with a mission: to film in

      8 min read

    • Article

      ‘I’ve Done A Bit Of Escaping Myself’ – An Ex-prisoner Picks The Best Jail Dramas

      Jul 1, 2022

      In prison, you have plenty of time to weigh up what’s truth and what’s bullshit. So whenever I watch a drama about crime and punishment, particularly one set in a jail, my first test is how quickly it takes me back to my spells in UK slammers. The g

      5 min read

    • Article

      Through The Glass

      Oct 8, 2020

      Through The Glass
      5 min read

    • Article

      It’s Surprisingly Tough to Avoid Snitching in Prison

      Jul 20, 2018

      “Snitches get stitches.” It’s principle number one of the Convict Code, the fabled law of honor among thieves. When I first entered the system, I figured avoiding snitching would be easy. How hard could it be not to betray your friends? One day a b

      5 min read

    • Article

      Epithalamium

      Jun 1, 2023

      Epithalamium
      16 min read

    • Article

      Death Of A Legent

      Nov 24, 2022

      Death Of A Legent
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Curious Case of the Prisoners in the Wrong Cellblock

      Jan 12, 2018

      This article was published in collaboration with Vice. The female robot voice recording begins: “Press one for English. Para Español oprima el dos.” Life Inside Perspectives from those who work and live in the criminal justice system.

      5 min read

    • Article

      My Prison Experiment

      Jun 26, 2016

      My Prison Experiment
      124 min read

    • Article

      Breaking The Law

      Jan 7, 2020

      Breaking The Law
      7 min read

    • Article

      Last Orders

      Jul 28, 2021

      Last Orders
      5 min read

    • Article

      ‘Less Regulated Than Ever’: Inside The Wild World Of Telemarketing

      Aug 14, 2023

      When a spam call comes in, the voice on the other side is, more often than not, robot-generated. But it still might belong to an actual human, someone who is ringing you from their kitchen table while they pat their dog or scroll through Facebook. Or

      4 min read

    • Article

      Surf Pawn

      Feb 11, 2019

      Surf Pawn
      3 min read

    • Article

      I Met My Friend in Prison. Now I Doubt His Innocence.

      Oct 12, 2018

      “Did the police contact you?” My heart stopped upon reading this out-of-the-blue text message from my old friend, James. I replied that I was just checking out at the grocery store, but that no, the police had not contacted me. I said I would call hi

      5 min read

    • Article

      Shaken, Not Stirred

      Dec 19, 2023

      Ava Glass, 50 Clambering down the hill, I tried not to trip as my kitten heels got wedged in the mud. Detectives crowded beside the river bank where a bloated body was being pulled out, arms jutting out as though waiting for a hug. River weeds hung f

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Escaped Jaguar

      May 9, 2019

      The Escaped Jaguar
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Star Island

    3.5/5

    459 ratings50 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Self-centered fearless-to-a-fault characters confined to bizarre situations, equals frequent LOLs.
    • 4/5
      "Star Island" is classic Carl Hiaasen: ?a wild romp, set (of course) in South Florida, and filled with despicable but hilarious characters who get their due. ?Cherry Pye is a 22 year-old hard-living pop star, who wants nothing more than to get and stay high--and to change her moniker to Cherish. ?To protect her reputation, her parents and her manager hire Ann DeLusia, a look-alike actress, to pretend to be Cherry at events that the singer herself is too smashed to attend. ? ?They also hire a body guard: ?Chemo, a 7 foot ex-con with seriously pock-marked skin, and an amputated arm that's been replaced with a weed-whacker. ? When Ann is kidnapped by Bang Abbott, an obese, odiferous paparazzo pursuing a money shot of Cherry, it's up to Lucy and Lila Lark, the over-Botoxed twins who serve as publicists for Cherry, to manage the situation, and they'd prefer that Ann disappear rather than let the public know that Cherry has a double. ?But this is actually Ann's second kidnapping in just a few days, and her prior kidnapper, who took a liking to her, has promised to help her out whenever she needs it. ? Hiaasen readers will recognize the first kidnapper: ?it's Skink,?the eco-terrorist former governor Florida who now lives as a hermit in a camp in the swamps, and is known to take outrageous steps to punish those whose actions will harm the local environment--like tying up a condo developer and placing a spiny sea urchin in his underwear!Like all Hiaasen novels, the plot is complex, and the writing is first-rate. ?It's not great literature, but it's great fun to read.
    • 4/5
      A relentless, humorous send-up of talentless, depraved pop-singers, young vacant actors with ridiculous names (Tanner Dane Keefe,) their greed-driven enablers, stalker paparazzi, moronic night-club themes (Pubes) and Miami Beach night life in general.The pop singer, Cherry Pye, is so reliably besotted that her clueless parents and smarmy manager employ a look-alike, Ann, to make appearances for Cherry when she’s too hammered. When Ann is kidnapped by a paparazzo who thinks she’s Cherry, things turn strange. Disfigured bodyguards and former Governors of Florida now living as Hermits (Skink) come into play. Hiaasen keeps it all boiling nicely as the story plays out.
    • 2/5
      Part of my quest to read books outside of my normal genre interests. Although funny at times and a parody of celebrity culture, it was just a little too bizarre for me.
    • 3/5
      Hiassen is his typical sarcastic self in his new novel which looks at a pop star out of control and her crazy money hungry family.
    • 4/5
      It's always a crazy romp with Hiaasen! Fun to have Skink show up again in this book.
    • 4/5
      God Bless Skink!!!
    • 4/5
      This is a classic Hiaasen book with snarky humor and an interesting plot. The story revolves around a pop star who is out of control even with her parents and manager supervising her. Skink becomes involved which always adds fun to one of his books.
    • 3/5
      3.5 Hilarious satirical send-up of South Beach life and no-talent movie stardom (think Kardashians) in which promoters, the adoring fans, and the celebrities themselves are all to blame for the vapid lifestyle and money machine that perpetuates the cycle. This was my first Hiassen for adults and it definitely is for adults in that he spares no crassness or vulgarity in capturing the "true" essence of the situation. I did appreciate the crossover character of Skink, the short-term FL governor, now Everglades-dwelling environmental vigilante who does not suffer fools lightly (really, at all), whom I knew from his YA title book. There are a lot of plot threads here, but they all come together well by the end. Center of the story is Cherry Pie, an underage lip-syncher (no talent) with a big image, ego, and publicity machine behind her (Maury, her promoter, and the sadistic former-felon bodyguard, Chemo who is supposed to keep her on the straight and narrow, her uptight twin publicists, her enabling parents, Janet and Ned Bunterman, her B-list celebrity boyfriend Tanner Dane Keith, an obsessed paparazzo, Bang Abbot and her unknown look-alike, "normal" actress Ann DeLusio.) Cherry is a train -wreck of a girl who repeatedly overdoses, does outrageous things and thinks the world revolves around her (think Lindsay Lohan in the 2000s) Her upcoming tour (Skantily Klad) is the only hope to salvage her career and everyone in her entourage is striving/conniving to make this happen, but she unknowingly (unthinkingly) is doing everything in her power to tank it. Ann stands in multiple times for the public/paparazzi while Cherry is passed out/in rehab/on the lam. She is accidentally kidnapped by Bang Abbot, which everyone tries to turn to their advantage. She reaches out to Skink for rescue and things really get convoluted and wild. Either Hiassen has a fabulous imagination or I have way too much naivete when it comes to Hollywood gossip. It's a fun escapist story with a lot of humor and sarcastic commentary on our times.
    • 5/5
      Actually, I think this might be one of Hiaasen's best. Although all are good, this one just has the perfect touch. A talentless kid singer 'star', a scumbag photographer, really bad parenting, and, of course, the ex-governor... all mix into a great tale.
    • 4/5
      Carl Hiaasen still has it! I love this man's work, his voice, and his style of writing so much, I cannot even tell you! this book was another amazing ride through the satirical life of Hiaasen's characters, and one that I will gladly go through again and again. I hated to see this book end, and I cannot wait for the next book to come out!
    • 3/5
      This book was only alright. Drugged out pop star and her "momager", her tour manager and her entourage and the lengths they go through to keep her antics out of the press. A paparazzo that is obsessed with getting the picture of her when she OD's which is pretty much inevitable. And her double, a struggling actress that looks like Cherry, they hire to portray Cherry publically when she's in rehab or the hospital having her stomach pumped so the public doesn't know. There's a host of other characters in this book, none of which are very likable. There's a lot going on and having listen to the audiobook, it's possible I may have missed something, but it was just one thing after another. There was kidnapping, hostage taking, bribery, theft, duplicity, heavy drug use, violence, sex, this book as something for everyone I guess. I just never found anything I could like about any of these people. I guess if I had to choose one I was at least interested in it would be Annie, the double. She seemed to be the most "normal" of any of them. I also didn't know this was part of a series, but Skink is a character, though not a key player so I didn't feel like I was missing anything by not reading the first five books.
    • 1/5
      Awful. Couldn't wait to finish.
    • 1/5
      You would think that young nymph-like, lip-synching druggies and their hangers-on would be impossible to parody. But you thought that of Sarah Palin, too. Tina Fey knew how to stick in the knife and twist it. Hiaasen, not so much. He bludgeons with a big hammer.

      His heavy-handed satire (his normal) drags on with sex, drugs, tattoos, private jets, and not much rock and roll. OKish book, if you are stuck someplace with nothing else and cannot sleep.
    • 4/5
      Sometimes you just need a fun little distraction of a book to take your mind off your worries, and this is the perfect choice.
    • 3/5
      One never opens an Hiaasen book expecting intricate plot themes and stunning charactizations. One reads Mr. Hiaasen because he has a biting wit which blends so well with his satirical look at certain aspects of life. In STAR ISLAND he tackles the pop diva music world personified by Cherry Pie … the perfect melding of so many young popsters on the current music scene. Cherry is over-indulged, under-talented, drug-dependant and stage-mothered. She is also stalked by uber-papparazzo Bang Abbott and has a look alike stand-in for those times she has the “tummy problems” she happens to be so prone to (nudge-nudge-wink-wink).

      This book is a humorous, no hold barred accounting of Ms. Cherry Pie’s sad life and poor career choices. The population of amusing peripheral characters is what made this book work for me. They were so over-the-top and took themselves so seriously that it was hard not to laugh at the unbelievability for the whole time we were allowed to glimpse into their lives. Personally I think this is a book you need to be in the mood to read … kind of like a pallete cleansing light sorbet between heavier main courses.
    • 4/5
      Carl never lets me down. I love his characters. His books are a joy to read. And oh how happy I was to have my favorite Ex governor back in my life. :)
    • 2/5
      Craziness on steroids in South Florida. 
    • 3/5
      The story follows a spoiled teen music star with a serious party mentality and her double who covers for her when she is incapacitated. Not the best plot from Hiaasen, but a few good digs and politicians and the entertainment world.
    • 5/5
      Papparazzi, corrupt real estate development deals, a clueless, utterly untalented pop star whose parents employ a team to keep her and the gravy train going. and crazed former governor of Florida who subsists on roadkill and brings vengeance down on those disrupt the pristine beauty of his state. These are the ingredients that Carl Hiaasen uses to cook up another masterpiece.
    • 1/5
      I normally love reading Carl Hiaasen, and that's the only reason I finished this book. His books are a bit formulaic, but they're fun, quick reads. Star Island was not really worth the time it took to read it(a lot longer than normal since I kept putting it down). It wasn't funny, it wasn't exciting, and I didn't care what happened to any of the characters. Not even Skink.
    • 2/5
      It might be me, but this seems like a not so energetic Carl Hiaasen. All the elements are there, but I just couldn't enjoy this one the way I have so many of his other novels.
    • 3/5
      Given the nature of this book which is simply entertainment and not great literature I can give no more than 3 stars. But for what it is I enjoyed it. If you are looking for mindless humorous quick read than this worked. I doubt if I would read another book by Hiaasen unless it was at a vacation home and I needed something to read.
    • 4/5
      As entertaining as expected. The main characters, Skink and Jim, re-appear lending satire and humor to the story line.
    • 4/5
      No secret here -- I'm a Hiaasen fan, especially when he features Clinton Tyree, a.k.a. Skink in the stories. Those two can romp through Florida like nobody's business, and do it in grand style with some star-powered licks taken as well.
    • 2/5
      Pretty much paint-by-numbers humor from an old hand. The characters are all readily visualizable as their Hollywood templates: Lindsay Lohan, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jerry Stiller & Anne Meara (at age 50, or thereabouts, not at age 95, or whatever they actually are now), and, of course, Burt Reynolds as the governor in dreadlocks. Of course there's an ecological message. The land is played out, in every way.
    • 2/5
      As good as it was when it started, Star Island, seems to lose most of it's momentum halfway through, until it reaches it uneventful ending. Overall, it feels like like a book that's half again as long.
    • 4/5
      "Star Island" is classic Carl Hiaasen:  a wild romp, set (of course) in South Florida, and filled with despicable but hilarious characters who get their due.  Cherry Pye is a 22 year-old hard-living pop star, who wants nothing more than to get and stay high--and to change her moniker to Cherish.  To protect her reputation, her parents and her manager hire Ann DeLusia, a look-alike actress, to pretend to be Cherry at events that the singer herself is too smashed to attend.    They also hire a body guard:  Chemo, a 7 foot ex-con with seriously pock-marked skin, and an amputated arm that's been replaced with a weed-whacker.   When Ann is kidnapped by Bang Abbott, an obese, odiferous paparazzo pursuing a money shot of Cherry, it's up to Lucy and Lila Lark, the over-Botoxed twins who serve as publicists for Cherry, to manage the situation, and they'd prefer that Ann disappear rather than let the public know that Cherry has a double.  But this is actually Ann's second kidnapping in just a few days, and her prior kidnapper, who took a liking to her, has promised to help her out whenever she needs it.   Hiaasen readers will recognize the first kidnapper:  it's Skink, the eco-terrorist former governor Florida who now lives as a hermit in a camp in the swamps, and is known to take outrageous steps to punish those whose actions will harm the local environment--like tying up a condo developer and placing a spiny sea urchin in his underwear!Like all Hiaasen novels, the plot is complex, and the writing is first-rate.  It's not great literature, but it's great fun to read.
    • 3/5
      Any book with Skink in it wins me over. This one was no exception, from changing his human fake eye for one from a stuffed hunting trophy to picking his teeth with a dessicated starling beak, he's a hoot to follow because you never know what he'll do next. Newcomers might think the environmental bit was tacked on, but that's Skink's metier - kicking unscrupulous butt in the name of ecology. And I caught a lovely Zevonism in there about someone leaving the 'detox mansion' - sweet. That being said, this book felt more forced than usual for Mr. H. The idiotic escapades of a brainless pop-star just got to be over the top even for him. And I wished I saw more of what made Ann so attractive to Skink to make him seek her out for rescue, and less of Cherry, her parents and handlers. Bang was pretty entertaining in his conscience-free, hapless way, but unlikeable. Maybe making Chemo a tad more sympathetic would have done the trick. The similarities to Frankenstein's monster weren't lost on me, but the sympathy was. Oh and I hate you, Carl baby, for putting that rancid Warrant song in my head for days. Thanks, bud. All in all not bad if you're a fan and like the lengths Hiaasen goes to, but if you can't put your tongue firmly in your cheek, don't bother.
    • 3/5
      I never thought I would give a Carl Hiassen book only three stars but sadly, that’s the most that “Star Island” deserves. This is a competent comedy written by a man who is normally a comic genius.All Hiassen’s usual characters are here, “Skink” the one-eyed ex-governor turned crazy eco-warrior. “Chemo” the scary killer with the peeled face and the bitten off hand from “Skinny Dip”. There is the usual chaotic larger-than-life plot revolving around greedy, grasping people who are so amoral they have little or no understanding of what they have become and there are the few characters whose humanity, independence and refusal to give up makes them shine in the human-swamp that surrounds them.But the story lacks passion. Hiassen seems to be going through the motions. Skink, for once, seems lost and not entirely sure of why he’s there. Dear God, he even ends up in a pin-striped suit. Chemo loses his menace and even seems to develop a conscience.The evil that the bad people do is largely to themselves and is hard to get excited about.The book is redeemed by the two main female characters, Cherry Pie, the young self-abusing pop-star and her body-double, spunky actress, Anne.These are the women that Hiassen seems to fall in love with in the book and that love drives everything else. He does a wonderful job of showing Cherry as more than an air-head. My heart went out to her because she wants to called “Cherish” because it sounds cool but I couldn’t help seeing the pathos of this name for someone who has never been cherished.Anne is brave and funny and honest and gets all the best lines. What’s not to love. Except perhaps that she treats the governor as an accessory, a plot device in the drama of her life, rather thana person. Perhaps this is what makes her the perfect actress.The book is of course well written, it made me laugh. It just wasn’t as good a “Skinny Dip” or “Nature Girl”.Perhaps I’m missing the point. Perhaps what Hiassen wanted to show was that the paperazzi-ridden pop world is so fake it kills all real passion but I don’t think so.