Lucky You
by Carl Hiaasen

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Book Reviews of Lucky You

Book Review: Get Rich Quick Fever Wrecks Havoc on Scammers!
Summary: 4 Stars

How would your life be changed if you suddenly won $14 million? Naturally, you would find good use for it. But what negative consequences would follow? If you favor your privacy, personal safety and sanity, you will find Lucky You presents a living nightmare of all the things that can go wrong.

Naturally, lottery winners become targets for all kinds of fraud. In fact, some will even try to claim that they own the winning tickets. But how often do envious people actually try to steal the ticket? That's the premise of this book.

The plot line though is merely an excuse for the ever satirical Mr. Hiaasen to unloose his humor on those who operate beyond the fringes of legal and ethical behavior including purveyors of fake religious miracles, crooked officials, cheating spouses, white supremacists, racists, the mob, counterfeiters and thieves. In addition, the humor spills over to include those who marry too quickly and unwisely, overeager managers and law clerks, and the overconfidence of men. Those who enjoy reading about writing will be thrilled by the many satirical references in the book to the degradation of the written word in small town newspapers.

Mr. Hiaasen is at his best when he focuses narrowly on fields of endeavor that he knows well. There his humor is sharp, on target and original. When he moves outside of his arena, the humor moves into burlesque and broad strokes that tend to belabor an obvious point past its potential. That's the weakness of this book. He's mostly off solid ground for his humor. Because his targets are people for whom we feel little sympathy, the humor sort of works.

This book contains one of Mr. Hiaasen's favorite themes: the significance of natural beauty being marred by greedy people. But there's no Skink here to take the story line to its usual brilliant potential.

If you are, however, a fan of Mr. Hiaasen, I definitely recommend this book to you. Just realize that this isn't one of his most brilliant efforts.

Appreciate what you have and live in harmony!

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