This is quite a strange book, and while I enjoy reading unusual and inventive narratives, this just didn’t do it for me. It felt to me as though it was trying a little too hard to be different.
I didn’t empathise with Ingrid at all; in fact I didn’t really like her unfortunately, and I felt it took too long to get into the ‘meat ‘of the story.
That said, the writing is pretty sound and this has some good reviews – it just wasn’t for me.

Sorry but I just didn't quite get this book. It may well be funny for some readers but not my style of humour. The story itself was OK but I just felt the book tried too hard to be funny with the use of crude language.

Feral Chickens
A Hawaiian Comedy
by C. McGee
John Hunt Publishing Ltd
Roundfire
General Fiction (Adult) , Literary Fiction

Description
After coming into unexpected money, Ingrid Kristiansen decides to leave the frigid plains of the Upper Midwest for the surreal beauty of Kauai. Unfortunately, upon arrival, she learns that her idyllic paradise has one serious flaw: the goddamn chickens. Those bastards are everywhere, pecking at the ground, pecking at each other, pecking at people’s patience. They ruin paradise. Deciding that the island would be better off without such clucking monstrosities, Ingrid makes it her mission to remove the foul creatures, no matter the cost...


Book no longer available so can't read and leave review

This offbeat and unusual read was the perfect way to unwind after a long day, as there were some parts that were hilarious! This is definitely the book for anyone looking for a unique and fun read!

Comedy is a very difficult genre because humour is so subjective. Unfortunately, "Feral Chickens" just isn't funny. At all. I read the entire thing from cover to cover and didn't even snigger.

I get that the chickens are meant to be metaphorical, but I really didn't enjoy reading about animal abuse in the guise of being hilarious.

On the upside, this is a light and easy read that didn't take me long to get through and had some thought provoking moments about culture and cultural identity. It's well written and gave me an insight into life on a Hawaiian island.

It. Just. Wasn't. Funny.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC with no obligation to review.

Ingrid Kristiansen came into some unexpected money and decides to leave the frigid plains of the Upper Midwest for the surreal beauty of Kauai. On arrival, she learns that paradise has one serious flaw: the goddamn chickens.

Kauai was a place Ingrids family visited while they were on vacation when she was nine years old. But things just aren't how she remembers them. There are chickens everywhere. She spends most of her free time plotting how to get rid of the chickens that are taking over everywhere..

This is quite a funny story but it contains bad language. It's not everyone that likes to read books with swear words in them. Ingrid likes a drink. She does not like the chickens. The plans she makes to kill them is hilarious. There is a lot going on in this quick read. From shark attacks to investment deals. A fun read with some laugh out loud moments.

I would like to thank NetGalley, John Hunt Punlishing and the author C. McGee for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

One of the funniest books I've come across. Cluckin' hilarious.

An absolute side-splittingly funny book at times. Farce, black comedy - all about chickens?!

I would recommend this if you're after something a little bit different. Ingrid is not your usual heroine, but she is definitely a strong, capable and determined woman, fighting against the villainy of an evil foe... the chickens of her island home.
"I hate those g*dd*mn chickens with the fire of ten million suns..."

Ingrid is a relative newcomer to the Hawaiian island, after coming into some money unexpectedly. Paradise it may be, in all ways but one - humans must share the island with the chicken population. And Ingrid, to put it mildly, is not a fan...

"The larger hobby is war, war against the chickens. God I hate those little bi***es. They have been my sworn enemy since day one..."

"An abhorrence of chickens...incessancy...torment...monstrosity...secretion...wretchedness" - Ingrid takes delight in choosing a suitable group noun for the menace. But she'll go farther than that in her her quest to rid her home of all chickens.

How Ingrid tries to kill off the chicken population had me chortling away, it's crazy the lengths she goes to, and there are some fantastically bizarre scenes. My two favourites involved a guillotine and a mongoose in a boat. Trust me, craziest couple of chapters ever. Comic genius.

I want to see this filmed, even for those two scenes, but Ingrid is an excellent role for a young actress, there are great minor roles for Hawaiian actors, and mongoose wranglers will find themselves in great demand.

A refreshing comedy, with a wonderful setting and appealingly amoral protagonist. Very, very funny.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing an advance reading copy.

Ingrid Kristiansen leaves her icy cold life and hometown the northern mid-west after coming into some unexpected money, deciding to go to Kauai, where she has memories of a wonderful vacation years ago. However, Ingrid finds out quickly that things are not all great in the paradise she remembers. The island is overrun with feral chickens. Disgusted and despising them, Ingrid formulates some crazy ways to get rid of the “rat-birds”. The book follows Ingrid through her attempts to eliminate the feral chickens, while otherwise spending time as a tour guide and drinking with her wealthy and unemployed “boyfriend” Ethan and his buddy Charlie.

This is a funny book, but I personally think it could have been just as funny without the constant inclusion of crude, swear-word language. I am by no means a prude, but this got on my nerves after a while. Ingrid, not surprisingly, also was going down the dark tunnel of alcoholism, and kept up with her friends drinking as the book went on. I am not sure why, but I wondered if this was really an allegory, unless I am making too much of it. The chickens, in this case, represent the multitude of tourists who flock to Hawaii on a regular basis—and who drive the residents crazy. I also was in Hawaii years ago and left with a memory of a grand and glorious trip to an island paradise. Then, after returning recently, I wondered how I ever even thought of it as a paradise, with all the tourists swarming around, complete with noise and constant activity. Nevertheless, I guess I fell right into that category myself, being a tourist. Anyway, the book is a short, quick read. There is not much of a plot, but there is one. The story itself lends to the humor of the piece, not just the crazy plot. This book provided me a great escape from the hot, sultry days of summer. I think it can also provide any reader respite from the hectic hub-bub of daily life and heat and humidity (if that is still present in daily life where the reader is). I received this from NetGalley to read and review.

Ingrid cashes in on a family plot in N. Dakota. Fresh with a chunk of change, she heads to Hawaii. On the island of Kauai, she finds the island replete with wild chickens. So begins her vigilante mission to free the island of said chickens.

Ingrid is privileged. She uses her pretty blonde status to her advantage and talks back to cops. She seeks to change an environment that she has inhabited for a very short time. She is very direct with an f-off attitude. She’s also the girl who can throw down with the boys.

This book is not one to be taken seriously. It will entertain you with numerous laugh-out-loud situations such as punching a shark while fighting off a mongoose. Or using a mongoose to fight off a shark. You decide. If you want a lighthearted parody, check this one out.

When Ingrid Krisiansen comes into some money she decides to escape cold and dull North Dakota and embark on a new life in the sunshine of Kauai. In many ways Kauai is indeed paradise but it has one great drawback – chickens. Lots and lots of feral chickens, which swarm everywhere and make a lot of noise. Ingrid starts to find their constant clucking and the early morning wake-up calls unbearable. The only thing she can do is wage war on them and exterminate them. How she sets about this is at the core of this amusing and quite ridiculous novel, one which I very much enjoyed. Her madcap attempts are really remarkably funny and if the book is somewhat over-the-top at times, well, it matters not, as the author carries it all off with great verve and ingenuity. But it’s not all comedy – there’s a serious aspect to the book as well, as it explores tourism and development on the island, for one man’s paradise can soon turn into another man’s money-making exercise. I understand that there are indeed a multitude of feral chickens on Kauai, and in fact they really can be a pest. I’ve also just discovered that they are a pest on Jersey in the Channel Islands in the UK – who knew? For me this reality check added to the novel’s depth, making it not just a laugh-out-loud entertainment but a thoughtful one as well.

Where do I start? Well, I put this book down and abandoned it several times and in the end gave up.
Foul language ( no pun intended) for no good reason apart from showing a lack of imagination or intelligence is not what I want to read.
I am sure that the story-line was more than likely ok and it will appeal to many, but sorry not for me

Feral Chickens is a hoot. A fast read, rarely a paragraph goes on that doesn't bring laughter with it and the occasional yearning to be 23 again. And I LOVE chickens....

There is a great deal of foul language but it fits the profile of our protagonist, Ingrid Kristiansen, who comes in to a great deal of money and decided to forgo Fargo and return to the Hawaiian Isles, a place visited on family vacation when she was nine years old. Things aren't all as she remembers!

C. McGee paints a picture of Hawaii that calls to any of us who have spent time on the southern coast as it sounds like home. Unfortunately the 'home' of today is as the Hawaii of Feral Chickens - tourists and snow birds crowd the beaches and highways. But is still home in the early hours of the day and night. McGee is an author I will follow. Feral Chickens is a book I can happily refer to friends and family.

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, C. McGee, and Roundfire Books. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

Ok, I admit it, it was the title that drew me to this book. Followed swiftly by the blurb. It definitely set my "bonkers" alert off, and anyone who knows me, knows that I do love a bit of bonkers in my reading!
It was also a bit of a sign when, just after I started this book, one of my facebook friends said in her status that she was fed up cleaning wild turkey poop off her property! I really was meant to read this book.
So, Ingrid comes into am inheritance which enables her to up sticks and move to the beautiful, idyllic Kauai. Obviously it soon transpired that she really hasn't done her homework about her new paradise as she finds it overrun by chickens. Somewhat ruining things for her. So, she wages war on the feral beasts, making it her mission to rid the island of them. Well, when she isn't living it up partying with her friends or working her great job for her horrible boss. Add into the mix a new resort that she debates investing in and some rather interesting interaction with locals in a bar and you got yourself a rip roaring scream of a book that definitely hit my funny bone!
This might not be a literary great in terms of content or execution but, you know what, it ticked every box for me as a read along the way and left me satisfied at the end. Some of the scenes had me holding my sides, almost crying with laughter. Others had me really sympathising with Ingrid as she suffered at the hands of her nasty boss. And I haven't even mentioned the mongooses yet! I had visions of cane toads in Australia in mind as I was reading about that solution to her problem. And the guillotine, an engineering masterpiece for sure. But fear I may say too much if I detail everything I loved about this book. The rest is yours to discover at your own pace. Suffice to say, it's bonkers and deliciously over the top in places and I blooming loved it! So much so that I am desperate to squeeze the author's other book into my already bulging tbr.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Well this book really fits into the category of everything I hate about books with an MPG of humour. BUT it so works I was hooked from the outset, the characterisation is fabulous. Ingrid is beleaguered day in, day out by feral chickens who don't appreciate her need for peace to think, make lists and generally make the most of Island life. The book follows her attempts to solve the problem whilst also settling into her new home and enjoying her new friends. I can't really do this book justice but it is one that has really caught my imagination and i shall look out for more by this author

A light and humorous read that had me chuckling out loud from time to time, this story about one woman's war against the feral chickens on her Hawaiian island home was certainly an entertaining read. The author cleverly uses a repeating motif of lists throughout the book, which I thought worked incredibly well and had some of the funniest moments in the book. It's clear that the author has a quick wit and a clever turn of phrase, both of which I enjoyed as a reader. I did however have one reservation about the book, I felt the characterisation and portrayal of Ingrid, our one woman chicken slaying machine, did not quite ring true. I was not surprised to find, when I checked after reading, that the author was a man, as I felt while reading that Ingrid was more of a man's idea of what he thought a strong, feisty female character would be.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Ingrid has moved from the Midwest to Hawaii and hates the chickens that run free through the island. She comes up with a plan to eliminate all the feral chickens of Kauai that involves smuggling mongooses. I really enjoyed this. It was amusing and definitely made me laugh. Even the kind of horrible parts (the multi-chicken guillotine and the whole kayak/mongoose debacle) were funny. I liked Ingrid and her attitude. Overall a dark-ish comedy with some kind of outrageous moments that I liked a lot. 4.5 stars, rounding to 5.

I am so sorry, I did try and persevere with this but had to give up half way through.i did not find the book funny or interesting but this is maybe down to me and it’s just my own personal opinion

This is the first review copy of a text that I am abandoning. After six chapters of drinking, gratuitous language, and generally crude imagery, I’m calling it quits. With a young female narrator, I’m wondering if this is what is being touted as the “new adult” genre. Perhaps. I will leave open the possibility that this character grows and changes in some substantive way in the remainder of the book, but her mouth is more than I’m willing to endure to get there. That says quite a bit considering my own vocabulary and that if those in my everyday life.

I too, grew up in Minnesota like the author and later moved to California. And having literally just returned from a vacation in Kauai (Princeville and Hanalei), I was really excited to read this book! And it is hilarious for sure! Ingrid moves from frosty North Dakota to Kauai when she is 23 and gets a job as a tour guide. That is short-lived however, as her cohort is a raging... (well, I won't put that language in a review)! Kauai is paradise of course, but Ingrid absolutely hates the chickens that run rampant over the island and plans to kill them in any way she can--and believe me--these schemes are outrageous and hysterical. But beneath the humor we see politics at work as there are protests and controversies surrounding the impending development of peaceful Hanalei Bay with bigger and better resorts. So if you need a humorous beach read this summer--better yet, read it on a beach in Hawaii to capture the full flavor of the islands and Ingrid!

I am always leery of comic novels because humour is pretty subjective and this one wasn't for me. I love Carl Hiaasen and the blurb sort of sounded like his sort of capers, but I disliked the main character so much that while I found some of her schtick witty, I just couldn't find the warmth I need in order to find it funny. She seemed spiteful in her wit and sometimes the jokes were flagged in unsubtle ways like (I paraphrase) 'we all laughed at the way I said this' and I felt I was being poked into finding it amusing. The setting and background to the character were unusual and interesting though!