Squirm

by Carl Hiaasen
276 pgs

Squirm is one of Carl Hiaasen's books written for younger readers (but still entertaining for adults) and it features Billy Dickens, a kid who lives in Florida with his mother and sister. His father left them when Billy was 3 years old, and since the only contact they've had from him since is the check he sends every month like clockwork, and since his mother always cuts up the envelope with the return address into tiny pieces, Billy doesn't even know where he lives, let alone what kind of a man he was, or what he does for a living.

But that hasn't stopped him from trying to learn more about his father. And when one month his mother fails to cut up the envelope into small enough pieces, Billy is able to figure out his father's current address, and using almost all of the money he's saved up from working at the supermarket, buys a plane ticket to Montana to go see him.

While in Montana, Billy meets his father's new wife and stepdaughter, who are members of the Crow Nation, but he never sees his father. It seems like even his new family doesn't know much about the man. They tell him he has some secret government job involving drones and that they don't know where he is most of the time.

But as Billy will eventually learn, even though his father wasn't involved in raising him, Billy still shares a lot in common with him. And eventually, those similarities will bring them together.

Squirm is a fun read. Hiaasen's humor is still there, even if it's bridled for younger audiences, but it's still enough to have made me smile often throughout.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆