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kaydanielsromance's review
4.0
Great start for Erin Mallon's debut novel! Lot's of LOL moments intermixed with dino learning.
I have always loved going to the museum and the dinosaur exhibits have especially one of my favorite stops when I visit. Growing up near Chicago I had my fair share of museum's to pick from so I was easily able to imagine the world Calliope was immersed in.
Told completely from her POV, we get to see Calliope stick her foot in her mouth quite a bit, but she doesn't often see her own transgressions. As a scientist in a male populated field, she often has a lack of filter, which makes for lots of quirky moments, but it also gets her into sticky situations like her meet-cute with Ralph the astronomer.
Calliope is stuck in an elevator when she first meets Ralph and he is on the other side of the doors, so they only hear each other's voices. She only has his sultry voice to go on to find him later, but lo and behold, he's the planetarium guide leading the show and talking about how the dinosaurs died. She's appalled that he killed her dinos. Ralph adores her quirky views and so begins their flirty relationship.
I have always loved going to the museum and the dinosaur exhibits have especially one of my favorite stops when I visit. Growing up near Chicago I had my fair share of museum's to pick from so I was easily able to imagine the world Calliope was immersed in.
Told completely from her POV, we get to see Calliope stick her foot in her mouth quite a bit, but she doesn't often see her own transgressions. As a scientist in a male populated field, she often has a lack of filter, which makes for lots of quirky moments, but it also gets her into sticky situations like her meet-cute with Ralph the astronomer.
Calliope is stuck in an elevator when she first meets Ralph and he is on the other side of the doors, so they only hear each other's voices. She only has his sultry voice to go on to find him later, but lo and behold, he's the planetarium guide leading the show and talking about how the dinosaurs died. She's appalled that he killed her dinos. Ralph adores her quirky views and so begins their flirty relationship.
alice94's review against another edition
2.0
I wanted to love this book so much, but as I was reading it I found myself just getting angrier and angrier as the story progressed. It was almost like the story was having a split personality with the main female, where she is pretending to be a professional woman while at the same time acting and speaking like she is a teenager who is going through a tantrum.
She gets attached to a male based off his voice and that's how she tracks him down, but because he misunderstood where they were suppose to meet she decides that the best thing to do is to confront him and cause a scene in front of all of her colleagues which also gets back to her boss.
Honestly, I ended up DNFing this book because I just couldn't let myself get into the story and the way that it was written was very frustrating.
She gets attached to a male based off his voice and that's how she tracks him down, but because he misunderstood where they were suppose to meet she decides that the best thing to do is to confront him and cause a scene in front of all of her colleagues which also gets back to her boss.
Honestly, I ended up DNFing this book because I just couldn't let myself get into the story and the way that it was written was very frustrating.
beccastaley's review against another edition
3.0
3-3.5 stars - funny and very modernized but sometimes it felt like it tried too hard to include all modern language and social norms. I especially hate when books or movies have people "txting lik dis" or using abbreviations... No one does that anymore
captainhotbun's review
emotional
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
salimah's review
4.0
Recommend, but there's a snag or two.
Erin Mallon's debut is equal parts funny and smart, but there are a few problematic elements that I'm not sure how to reconcile. She's written a mostly wonderful male counterpart to her protagonist, Calliope. However, the heroine is not just flawed. She's hard to root for a lot of the time. Their (the Hero's/Heroine's) levels of self-awareness aren't aligned and I think the pairing would have benefited from equal maturity. I wasn't always sure what Ralph saw in Calliope.
However, there was one instance that confuses me. Calliope stands up for herself to her wildly inappropriate parents (who each made problematic statements about her love interest being Jewish) and the instance is written as her being myopic and selfish. I'm not sure how she wound up being the villain of that particular plot point. Her mother and father were asses in that scenario and the hero? Well, he sided with the parents and outed her writing persona/project and then chastised her for not letting that disrespect slide. The hell?
There's plenty of valid criticism to go around re Calliope's self-absorption, but that moment wasn't it.
It's a story with good bones, but I wish it had been fleshed out a little differently.
Bumping up to 4 stars from 3 because I respect the attempt, love Erin Mallon's narration, and appreciate the growth Calliope experiences by novel's end.
Erin Mallon's debut is equal parts funny and smart, but there are a few problematic elements that I'm not sure how to reconcile. She's written a mostly wonderful male counterpart to her protagonist, Calliope. However, the heroine is not just flawed. She's hard to root for a lot of the time. Their (the Hero's/Heroine's) levels of self-awareness aren't aligned and I think the pairing would have benefited from equal maturity. I wasn't always sure what Ralph saw in Calliope.
However, there was one instance that confuses me. Calliope stands up for herself to her wildly inappropriate parents (who each made problematic statements about her love interest being Jewish) and the instance is written as her being myopic and selfish. I'm not sure how she wound up being the villain of that particular plot point. Her mother and father were asses in that scenario and the hero? Well, he sided with the parents and outed her writing persona/project and then chastised her for not letting that disrespect slide. The hell?
There's plenty of valid criticism to go around re Calliope's self-absorption, but that moment wasn't it.
It's a story with good bones, but I wish it had been fleshed out a little differently.
Bumping up to 4 stars from 3 because I respect the attempt, love Erin Mallon's narration, and appreciate the growth Calliope experiences by novel's end.
filthylittlereader's review against another edition
5.0
Erin Mallon is one of my favorite narrators so to listen to a book both narrated and written by her...I mean does it get any better??
I was suffering through a serious book hangover and this story was just the book to bring me out of it right before putting me into another one.
I was suffering through a serious book hangover and this story was just the book to bring me out of it right before putting me into another one.
anasatticbookblog's review against another edition
5.0
Flirtasaurus by Erin Mallon
Narrated by Erin Mallon
Standalone Romantic Comedy. First in a Related series.
Erin Mallon is one of my favorite narrators. She is also an accomplished play writer and author of the recently released audio play, These Walls Can Talk. Flirtasaurus is her first novel, and it is absolutely a 2020 favorite. I don’t often mention other authors, but I have to say that Flirtasaurus is like Jana Aston, Tara Sivec and Penny Reid wrote together, which is one of the hugest compliments I can give.
With what is happening in the world right now we all need to laugh more, and Flirtasaurus had me literally laughing out loud so many times! One thing I have to say though is that being a playwriter and a narrator, I think Erin’s writing translates better to audio. There is a lot of dialogue, and I love it in audio, but I noticed that it was a little harder to follow in print, even though reading it after listening had me giggling like a loon again. Just the way she emphasized some things was funny in print too!
What I’m saying is I have my proverbial shit together. Clearly.
“GET ME OUT OF HERE OR IMMA LOSE MY SHIT!”
Calliope is a paleontologist who just landed her dream internship at a museum, only she gets stuck in the elevator on her first morning. Luckily, some “sexy-voiced mystery dude” outside the doors kept her calm until she was rescued.
Calliope just blurts out whatever is on her mind. She is very flawed and very funny, but she is smart and she loves her dinosaurs. Ralph, on the other hand, is a nice guy. He’s an astronomer at the same museum who is hot and nerdy but likes Callie just how she is. Their banter is hysterical!
“You, Calliope FitzGerald, are an absolute lunatic.”
Likes:
- •Laughed out loud through the whole book.
- •It was smart.
- •Calliopes ‘trip’! LOL
- •Calliope is real and flawed (very) but still so funny.
- •I love Ralph! And Erin’s voice made him so sexy, even with the unfortunate name.
- •How Calliope just says whatever she is thinking.
- •Her true and real love and excitement for Paleontology and dinosaurs.
- •I loved the smart kids!
- •Dr. Knowles was a great character.
- •A rare Jewish hero.
- •Who knew there were so many prehistoric names for sex!
Dislikes:
- •Calliope was kind of a selfish, judgmental bitch sometimes. Somehow she was still funny and likable but was much more likable in audio.
- •A few small plot points that never really developed.
- •Print book only: A lot of dialogue without saying who is speaking can get confusing and exhausting.
The Narration:
Flirtasaurus was written for audio (whether she meant to or not), and you can tell Erin heard it in her head as she wrote it. This is one book where I think the audio really gave this book a huge advantage because there was so much dialogue. It was hysterical to listen to but got a little exhausting to read.
The Down & Dirty:
Flirtasuarus was absolutely hilarious. It is very rare that I giggle out loud like that, but I snort-laughed! I had such an awesome time listening to Flirtasaurus that I couldn’t give it less than 5 stars. It’s rare that I do that with books that aren’t perfect, but I just loved it so much. While writing this review, the more I analyzed and picked it apart, the more little things I found that I could get annoyed over, but that is because I basically read the print version while writing this review (and I was laughing again!) but I think I still found it funnier because I heard Erin in my head making it funny. While the audiobook is 5 stars, had I only read it, I think it would have been more like a 3.5-4 because all the dialogue lent itself better to audio. I am so, so excited for Lovebug, the next in the series, about Mabel!
Audiobook Rating: 5 Stars, 3 Heat, 5++ Narration
Purchase Flirtasaurus by Erin Mallon
