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1.88 AVERAGE
1.88 AVERAGE
I'm giving this 2 stars for effort. I get what this author is trying to do and I'm totally on board. I don't even have a problem with the pterodactyl or the weird wrangle dancing or the contradictory ostracizing of women too closely associated with the prehistoric boy everyone loves so much (even though he has zero personality).
My real problem lies with Shiels. She is unlikeable, sure, but her personality also makes little sense. She justifies her deep obsession and need for control with crazy or no reasoning at all. It doesn't add up.
Why does Pyke drive her to act irrationally? Was she not itching to be free before? Does everyone have a creepy internal conversation with their heroes? Where did Pyke leave her? Is she even in the same country? Will the town be quarantined because there was some sort of mass gas leak and everyone hallucinated? Will Shiels run a shoe store because she seems fixated on it?
On the other hand, I do recognize a lot of the pressures she faces from school and obligations to her family. I recognize that, as a woman, she is expected to behave in a certain way and when she does not comply she is penalized for it. Despite this, I hate-read Shiels' problems because I do not like her one bit. The whole time all I could think was that it was too bad this pterodactyl didn't have the appetite for humans.
My real problem lies with Shiels. She is unlikeable, sure, but her personality also makes little sense. She justifies her deep obsession and need for control with crazy or no reasoning at all. It doesn't add up.
Why does Pyke drive her to act irrationally? Was she not itching to be free before? Does everyone have a creepy internal conversation with their heroes? Where did Pyke leave her? Is she even in the same country? Will the town be quarantined because there was some sort of mass gas leak and everyone hallucinated? Will Shiels run a shoe store because she seems fixated on it?
On the other hand, I do recognize a lot of the pressures she faces from school and obligations to her family. I recognize that, as a woman, she is expected to behave in a certain way and when she does not comply she is penalized for it. Despite this, I hate-read Shiels' problems because I do not like her one bit. The whole time all I could think was that it was too bad this pterodactyl didn't have the appetite for humans.
This book enticed me with it’s absurd and hilarious title. Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend? This has got to be good.
It wasn’t. By the finish of the first chapter I was feeling pretty uncomfortable and not uncomfortable in the way that George Saunders sometimes makes me uncomfortable in his satirical stories, but uncomfortable as if the author wasn’t writing a satire so much as telling a poorly thought-out political joke. Like the Saunders short story, the Semplica Girl Diaries it closely examines classist use of the ‘other’ in middle or upper class suburbia, Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend seems like it was an attempt to point at the absurdity of the application of ‘otherness.’
I feel that Cumyn was trying to examine the common YA ‘exotic’ or ‘other’ boyfriend trope, but for me it remained uncomfortable in that the examination never revealed itself, it was just there and I didn’t feel it commented on the values paranormal romance books instill in their readers or addressed the elephant (or rather pterodactyl) in the room. How did Pyke really feel about how the kids and adults in the school used him and viewed him? He was made to perform like a circus animal, treated like a sexual conquest and given little choice in how he was mythologized and exotisized by the community.
In the book Shiels comments that if Pyke were a different race or had a different gender identity or sexuality then people would be more accepting of him. I question that. I disagree. The fact that Pyke happens to be a different species actually matters little to the content of the book. I think Cumyns was trying to draw attention to the vampire/ghost/werewolf boyfriends in other books, and similar to those books, Pyke is denied a voice or a choice in his affections, everything is fate, or animal attraction. However silly it may seem to imagine a girl making out with a pterodactyl, it made me question, is that how Cumyns pictures people who are different from ‘normal?’ Like a ridiculous joke when compared to the ‘normal?’
It was frustrating reading about Shiels and her obsession with Pyke, the first inter-species transfer student to her school. Pyke quickly establishes a following at her school, seeming to bring out the primal nature of the students, especially girls, who cannot control their unabashed desire around him. While I give credit to Cumyns for including both girls and boys being affected by Pyke's odd charisma, I was bothered that women were again targeted as the prey of emotional hysteria.
Taking it’s cues from the many paranormal romances out there Pyke is irresistible to every woman, including Shiels mother. Oddly there was one girl who seemed to resist Pyke’s charms, but she is barely mentioned, only in the context of replacing Shiels as Sheldon’s girlfriend. Why was she immune to Pyke’s charms? Who knows.
The plot felt incomplete to me. It would have been funnier if it had a bit more substance, but as it was it was just absurd and off-putting without any messages or grounding presence to help readers through the experience or give the characters any real relatability.
There were a few other aspects of the novel that attempted to flesh out the characters and build up some sort of plot and growth/change for Shiels, but in the end I was just confused and a little bit sorry that I spent as long as I had in examination of the book. Throughout the book there are scenes where I thought we were reaching some sort of climax, but then we’d take two steps back again. I kept hoping that at some point the absurdity of the situation would erupt into some sort of understanding or revelation.
By the end though, the hope for revelation was replaced by the creeping dread that the author would end the thing by saying, “And then she woke up, it had all been a bizarre nightmare, or perhaps a glimpse of some alternate dimension.”
He didn’t and I won’t spoil it for anyone who does want to read this, but I will say that the ending is pretty much as bizarre as the beginning and left me as confused (if not more) than I was at the start.
It wasn’t. By the finish of the first chapter I was feeling pretty uncomfortable and not uncomfortable in the way that George Saunders sometimes makes me uncomfortable in his satirical stories, but uncomfortable as if the author wasn’t writing a satire so much as telling a poorly thought-out political joke. Like the Saunders short story, the Semplica Girl Diaries it closely examines classist use of the ‘other’ in middle or upper class suburbia, Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend seems like it was an attempt to point at the absurdity of the application of ‘otherness.’
I feel that Cumyn was trying to examine the common YA ‘exotic’ or ‘other’ boyfriend trope, but for me it remained uncomfortable in that the examination never revealed itself, it was just there and I didn’t feel it commented on the values paranormal romance books instill in their readers or addressed the elephant (or rather pterodactyl) in the room. How did Pyke really feel about how the kids and adults in the school used him and viewed him? He was made to perform like a circus animal, treated like a sexual conquest and given little choice in how he was mythologized and exotisized by the community.
In the book Shiels comments that if Pyke were a different race or had a different gender identity or sexuality then people would be more accepting of him. I question that. I disagree. The fact that Pyke happens to be a different species actually matters little to the content of the book. I think Cumyns was trying to draw attention to the vampire/ghost/werewolf boyfriends in other books, and similar to those books, Pyke is denied a voice or a choice in his affections, everything is fate, or animal attraction. However silly it may seem to imagine a girl making out with a pterodactyl, it made me question, is that how Cumyns pictures people who are different from ‘normal?’ Like a ridiculous joke when compared to the ‘normal?’
It was frustrating reading about Shiels and her obsession with Pyke, the first inter-species transfer student to her school. Pyke quickly establishes a following at her school, seeming to bring out the primal nature of the students, especially girls, who cannot control their unabashed desire around him. While I give credit to Cumyns for including both girls and boys being affected by Pyke's odd charisma, I was bothered that women were again targeted as the prey of emotional hysteria.
Taking it’s cues from the many paranormal romances out there Pyke is irresistible to every woman, including Shiels mother. Oddly there was one girl who seemed to resist Pyke’s charms, but she is barely mentioned, only in the context of replacing Shiels as Sheldon’s girlfriend. Why was she immune to Pyke’s charms? Who knows.
The plot felt incomplete to me. It would have been funnier if it had a bit more substance, but as it was it was just absurd and off-putting without any messages or grounding presence to help readers through the experience or give the characters any real relatability.
There were a few other aspects of the novel that attempted to flesh out the characters and build up some sort of plot and growth/change for Shiels, but in the end I was just confused and a little bit sorry that I spent as long as I had in examination of the book. Throughout the book there are scenes where I thought we were reaching some sort of climax, but then we’d take two steps back again. I kept hoping that at some point the absurdity of the situation would erupt into some sort of understanding or revelation.
By the end though, the hope for revelation was replaced by the creeping dread that the author would end the thing by saying, “And then she woke up, it had all been a bizarre nightmare, or perhaps a glimpse of some alternate dimension.”
He didn’t and I won’t spoil it for anyone who does want to read this, but I will say that the ending is pretty much as bizarre as the beginning and left me as confused (if not more) than I was at the start.
I admit it: I got this book because it was bright pink and the title was hilarious and I thought, well, I need some laughs this week.
What I actually got was something much more interesting, much more complicated than the girl-meets-dinosaur-and-love-happens story that I was assuming I'd laugh over and livetweet.
My main problem now is that I'm not sure how I'm going to persuade anyone to read it, given that the title, while clever and eye-catching, actually probably does more harm here than good.
Anyway, like The Bees, this is another one of those books that you need to suspend your disbelief to read, and if you think you can't, then you shouldn't. If you can't handle the fact that one of the protagonists of this novel - complex and arresting and unknowable as he is - is a pterodactyl, then don't bother reading this.
If you can, then you should. The writing is incredible, thoughtful and flowing and dreamlike, and what unfolds isn't really a love story. It isn't really even about a hot pterodactyl (though some of it is). A lot of it is about Shiels, desperate to control herself and the world around her, determined to beat it into submission and into place because that's the only way she can handle it. And once she can't do that anymore - once something no one could ever plan for happens - then it's about how she loses that control, and gives up that control, and learns a lot about herself and the people around her.
It's strange, and sad, and thoughtful, and uncomfortable, and weirdly sexy, and emotionally brutal in places, with an ending that I didn't see coming and that felt perfect for it.
You probably looked at the cover and the title and even that mess of a blurb and thought you didn't want to read this, but you do. You just don't know it yet.
What I actually got was something much more interesting, much more complicated than the girl-meets-dinosaur-and-love-happens story that I was assuming I'd laugh over and livetweet.
My main problem now is that I'm not sure how I'm going to persuade anyone to read it, given that the title, while clever and eye-catching, actually probably does more harm here than good.
Anyway, like The Bees, this is another one of those books that you need to suspend your disbelief to read, and if you think you can't, then you shouldn't. If you can't handle the fact that one of the protagonists of this novel - complex and arresting and unknowable as he is - is a pterodactyl, then don't bother reading this.
If you can, then you should. The writing is incredible, thoughtful and flowing and dreamlike, and what unfolds isn't really a love story. It isn't really even about a hot pterodactyl (though some of it is). A lot of it is about Shiels, desperate to control herself and the world around her, determined to beat it into submission and into place because that's the only way she can handle it. And once she can't do that anymore - once something no one could ever plan for happens - then it's about how she loses that control, and gives up that control, and learns a lot about herself and the people around her.
It's strange, and sad, and thoughtful, and uncomfortable, and weirdly sexy, and emotionally brutal in places, with an ending that I didn't see coming and that felt perfect for it.
You probably looked at the cover and the title and even that mess of a blurb and thought you didn't want to read this, but you do. You just don't know it yet.
DNF.
Sadly, it was not good. Not the kind of not good that you can enjoy and read because it’s still fun, but just the didn’t finish kind. The protagonist was unlikeable, and while that isn’t usually a deal-breaker for me, if I’m 50 pages in and still haven’t had very many scenes with the aforementioned Pterodactlyl Boyfriend, I call foul on the whole thing.
Sadly, it was not good. Not the kind of not good that you can enjoy and read because it’s still fun, but just the didn’t finish kind. The protagonist was unlikeable, and while that isn’t usually a deal-breaker for me, if I’m 50 pages in and still haven’t had very many scenes with the aforementioned Pterodactlyl Boyfriend, I call foul on the whole thing.