1 - I LOVE Carl Hiaasen (and it is 2 As). Have you read anything else by him? I own at least four of his books and have read two others but I haven't read that one. I'd recommend any of them, to anyone (and have! most notably to a nice homeless fellow in the worcester train station).

2 - I Capture the Castle is the only book I can recall that I actually did not bother to finish reading. I just couldn't get into it, I was reading it at the wrong time in my life and I returned it to the library totally unfinished. I got maybe halfway through it.