Chomp

Random House

Chomp
Carl Hiaasen
2013

The Summary
"Wahoo Cray lives in a zoo.  His father is an animal wrangler, so he's grown up with all manner of gators, snakes, parrots, rats, monkeys, and snappers in his backyard.  The critters, he can handle.  His father is the unpredictable one.

"When his dad takes a job with a reality TV show called Expedition Survival!, Wahoo figures he'll have to do a bit of wrangling himself - to keep his dad from killing Derek Badger, the show's inept and egotistical star, before the shoot is over.  But the job keeps getting more complicated.  Derek Badger foolishly believes his own PR and insists on using wild animals for his stunts.  And Wahoo's acquired a shadow named Tuna - a girl who's sporting a shiner courtesy of her father and needs a place to hide out.

"They've only been on location in the Everglades for a day before Derek gets bitten by a bat and goes missing in a storm.  Search parties head out and promptly get lost themselves.  And then Tuna's dad shows up with a gun...

"It's anyone's guess who will actually  survive Expedition Survival...."

The Good
Hiaasen's novel alternates between uproariously funny and viciously somber with a hint of razor-sharp wit thrown into the mix.  Between his father's adoration for animals and Derek Badger's utter disregard for common sense, Chomp is utterly - and unpredictably - comical.  Like Mickey Cray getting a concussion from a frozen iguana, or Derek Badger being bitten by a bat and believing he will turn into a vampire.

Chomp manages to brush against serious themes without weighing down the story.  Tuna, for example, is caught in a terrible family situation; while it becomes a factor in the book (and Hiaasen shines a light on abuse), the author doesn't attempt to preach or condemn.  He manages to give his novel a serious tone while still making his story adventurous and lighthearted.

I loved Wahoo's matter-of-fact view of the world:  when Alice (the alligator) accidentally took his thumb, he attributes it to his own carelessness; when he loses his new cell phone in one of the ponds on his dad's property, he knew he shouldn't have been trying to feed the raccoons at the same time; and when he finds his dad wrapped up by a boa constrictor, he helps untangle his dad and takes the snake back to her exhibit.

Wahoo and his dad are an interesting team.  I definitely liked seeing how Mickey Cray would handle Derek Badger and his antics - and how Wahoo would manage to handle his dad.

The Bad
I don't really have any complaints about Chomp.  It has a unique sense of humor, which had the occasion of not completely appealing to me, but I think that's just a personal preference; otherwise, I enjoyed Chomp and I had fun reading it.

However, I would not really recommend reading it on a tablet phone.  It kind of loses its punch on a small screen.

The Ugly
Derek does think he's a vampire for a little while.  And Tuna's father wreaks utter havoc on the set of Expedition Survival - and it's actually frightening to think that some of these characters are in real danger and they might not survive.