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1.88 AVERAGE
1.88 AVERAGE
I had originally picked this book up because I thought it would be hilarious. I had heard about it from the Read With Cindy YouTube channel, her review had me chuckling and when I came across a copy at my local library, I decided to check it out and oh boy. It was a rough read. It was terrible. It reminded me of Twilight a bit, with the swooning over the strange boy and how the main character felt like her life is going to end if she doesn't have him. The writing style had me confused the entire time and I could not sink into the story at all, which it made it difficult to finish. I did come close to DNFing (did-not-finish) the book. I honestly should have, so I could have read something I would have actually liked. So you have been warned, read at your own risk!
I wish I hadn't read this book. It didn't make much sense, and it wasted the wonderful possibilities that it could've been. I mean, the synopsis sounded really fantastic, but this book didn't live up to it's potential.
challenging
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Okay. So. This is one of those books everyone talks about how bad it is. They tell you not to read it, but you do to see how bad it is. This was also (jokingly) a group read last month in Words & Whimsy Reading Challenge. Perfect time to read it and see what the big deal was.
The deal was – it was bad. Shelis is a highschooler. She’s very into student council, so when a pterodactyl joins the school, she decides she is going to make sure he fits in. All the while, she falls in love with him, is jealous he likes her AND another high school girl, AND Shelis’ MOM FALLS FOR HIM. WHAT? They also all have purple noses after they wrangle dance with him. Aka sex. They have sex with a pterodactyl. And get purple noses. I just… what?
That was my thought throughout the whole book. Just what? I was confused. So much happened, but it also seemed like nothing happened? It was weird. And bad. Please don’t read it.
The deal was – it was bad. Shelis is a highschooler. She’s very into student council, so when a pterodactyl joins the school, she decides she is going to make sure he fits in. All the while, she falls in love with him, is jealous he likes her AND another high school girl, AND Shelis’ MOM FALLS FOR HIM. WHAT? They also all have purple noses after they wrangle dance with him. Aka sex. They have sex with a pterodactyl. And get purple noses. I just… what?
That was my thought throughout the whole book. Just what? I was confused. So much happened, but it also seemed like nothing happened? It was weird. And bad. Please don’t read it.
Do yourself a favor and don't read this book. I was a fool. I had seen the reviews and thought, "Ha! You guys are weak/don't have a sense of humor! This book sounds amazing!" I'm sad to report it is not. It's not as self-aware as it leads on to be. It's repetitive, boring, and horribly written. The main character is the most annoying, horrid protagonist I've ever read. She's the worst! I could go into details of the things wrong with the novel, but I just finished it and I'm so exhausted.
Weird. Like in a dream that ir trying to reach anthropology.
Alright, this book. Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend. I picked it up hoping, desperately needing this to be a campy, hilarious book that would do justice to its utterly perfect title. Sadly, that is not what I got.
From the first page, this book was a disappointment. I kept an open mind, thinking maybe it was just taking a bit for the story to get started. Though the constant mention of the pterodactyl’s ‘deeply muscled chest’ made me think that maybe, just maybe it would turn into the goofy, fun novel I was hoping for. But it takes itself too seriously, and therefore became a missed opportunity. The writing was too stiff and the main character Shiels is written like she’s a forty-year-old lawyer. It is impossible to think of Shiels as a teenage girl. Sure, she’s responsible, she’s smart, and those two things warrant something a little different than a Belle Swan, but the author clearly has no idea how teenagers, or people in general for that matter, talk in real life.
The plot is also painful to follow. A pterodactyl falls from the sky, there’s very little conflict about it, but the main character acts like everyone pulled out their guns and took aim. There’s a dance (but really is a poorly concealed substitution for sex), a couple of girls’ noses turn purple (I read these parts twice and I still have no idea what that was about), and some more not-sex-but-actually-is-sex. Then Pyke the pterodactyl straight up kidnaps Shiels to take her to his lair (a secluded place with lots of other pterodactyls, including one female student who turned into one apparently. Shiels gets away and and calmly asks for a ride from a trucker. The end. Seriously, that’s what happened. There’s no real conclusion, no sense of closer for the insanity that is this book. Twilight’s got nothing on this nonsense.
On the plus side, I finally learned how to spell pterodactyl.
So, to sum up, terrible writing, painful plot, and none of the fun campy-ness I was hoping for. Let’s just keep the Dino-porn in the cheap adult paperback section where it belongs.
Check out more of my reviews on www.callenwrites.com
From the first page, this book was a disappointment. I kept an open mind, thinking maybe it was just taking a bit for the story to get started. Though the constant mention of the pterodactyl’s ‘deeply muscled chest’ made me think that maybe, just maybe it would turn into the goofy, fun novel I was hoping for. But it takes itself too seriously, and therefore became a missed opportunity. The writing was too stiff and the main character Shiels is written like she’s a forty-year-old lawyer. It is impossible to think of Shiels as a teenage girl. Sure, she’s responsible, she’s smart, and those two things warrant something a little different than a Belle Swan, but the author clearly has no idea how teenagers, or people in general for that matter, talk in real life.
The plot is also painful to follow. A pterodactyl falls from the sky, there’s very little conflict about it, but the main character acts like everyone pulled out their guns and took aim. There’s a dance (but really is a poorly concealed substitution for sex), a couple of girls’ noses turn purple (I read these parts twice and I still have no idea what that was about), and some more not-sex-but-actually-is-sex. Then Pyke the pterodactyl straight up kidnaps Shiels to take her to his lair (a secluded place with lots of other pterodactyls, including one female student who turned into one apparently. Shiels gets away and and calmly asks for a ride from a trucker. The end. Seriously, that’s what happened. There’s no real conclusion, no sense of closer for the insanity that is this book. Twilight’s got nothing on this nonsense.
On the plus side, I finally learned how to spell pterodactyl.
So, to sum up, terrible writing, painful plot, and none of the fun campy-ness I was hoping for. Let’s just keep the Dino-porn in the cheap adult paperback section where it belongs.
Check out more of my reviews on www.callenwrites.com
Okay, so I kinda expected something that was just lolworthy and making fun of itself when I picked this book up. But honestly, this was disappointing. It's one of those really great concepts that is so poorly executed, it makes me mad that I didn't think of it first, because I could totally write it better. (*cough* Vampirates *cough*)
Here's how I would have written this:
A magical-realism type world where dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals coexist with humans, some of which (like pterodactyls) happen to be sentient. An effort by a local school to "integrate" non-human populations in order to increase diversity. The highly-motivated student body president gets assigned, as part of a student outreach program, to tutor a pterodactyl in human culture. She teaches him to speak English (or sign language, idk) and discovers that he's super intelligent and also, despite his predatory appearance, empathetic and kind. He wants to be a doctor. They begin to spend more time together - he invites her to hang with his prehistoric friends, she tries to introduce him to her uptight friend group, and both of these efforts fail miserably. Despite their friends' skepticism, the two of them realize that their growing mutual respect and friendship is turning into something else. They are forced to deal with the world's outrage when their love is exposed.
...Basically, something that would still hold up as a compelling and humanizing romance, even if you took out the pterodactyl.
Here's what I got instead:
-first of all, I'm going to judge this story as if it had no pterodactyls in it. Because that's the thing about stories with stupid gimmicks like that. It still has to be, you know, A GOOD STORY. You need a solid framework on which to hang the absurd. And that was completely lacking here.
-Shiels is The Worst, omg. NO ONE ACTS LIKE THIS. No teenage girl in the history of ever, and quite possibly no human being. She's completely irrational and self-centered, and don't try to tell me it was some pterodactyl pheromone thing (though we never actually get any legit explanation as to why people, and women in particular, are so affected by Pyke's presence) because it wasn't every other member of the student body breaking up with their perfectly nice nerdy boyfriend to fling themselves at some random transfer student they'd only exchanged, like, 5 words with.
-I mean, I can take the Uptight Student Body President character type if it's well done. (I particularly enjoyed Brenna Yovanoff's "Places No One Knows," where the character is darn near sociopathic, but still written in a way that seems human and relatable. Actually, if you want to see a character like Shiels done right - down to the obsession with running - I suggest that book.) But I just hated Shiels so much. She didn't act like any sane human being would act, even under the influence of extreme infatuation.
-"I'm in love with him!" NO YOU'RE NOT, you've talked to him like twice and he's dating someone else! You literally just think he's hot. Even judged by the measure of other stupid YA instalove romances, this is deeply ridiculous - and quite honestly, harmful. People need to stop using "love" to describe lust - or worse, one-sided obsession. The only excuse for this shallow of a relationship is if this were going to be an erotica where the endgame was "character bangs pterodactyl," not "character dates and falls in love with pterodactyl." And even then, I've seen erotica with much better character and relationship building.
-the elements of the absurd in this book didn't work for me. The writing took itself WAY too seriously, and then it would just shove in something like "and then all the girls Pyke dances with get a purple nose!" This tone would have worked better if it really committed to the one element it promises on the cover: a pterodactyl. We get no explanation about where Pyke comes from or what his deal is, or even any character traits about him at all, not counting the physical. Instead we're meant to accept it as a nonsensical thing that happens, and move on. But the writing style won't let it be a silly parody, and so the whole thing just feels incoherent as a result. Either commit to the serious tone, and throw in some backstory, or commit to the goofy, and give it a dryly sarcastic self-mocking sort of narration.
-This would have worked better as a parody if it understood the genre it was parodying. But no. I hate to pull the gender card, but this was written by an adult man, who is not the target demographic for "Twilight"-esque books in the YA romance genre, and whose opinion of them is almost definitely disparaging. (How do I know that? *dramatically indicates the entirety of this book*) This is a book written as a wink-wink, nudge-nudge, isn't YA romance so stupid kind of parody. The problem is, the people who are most likely to read it ARE ALSO READERS OF THAT GENRE. So they're probably going to feel talked down to, and disrespected. Which was definitely how I felt during parts of this book. If you want to parody YA romance, you've got to poke fun at it in a way that people who actually like YA are still going to be like "haha yeah they've got some good points." We've got to be in on the joke, not the butt of it.
This could have been so funny, but it just ended up being annoying and tedious to read. I so wanted this to be great, but I just couldn't get behind it. :/
Here's how I would have written this:
A magical-realism type world where dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals coexist with humans, some of which (like pterodactyls) happen to be sentient. An effort by a local school to "integrate" non-human populations in order to increase diversity. The highly-motivated student body president gets assigned, as part of a student outreach program, to tutor a pterodactyl in human culture. She teaches him to speak English (or sign language, idk) and discovers that he's super intelligent and also, despite his predatory appearance, empathetic and kind. He wants to be a doctor. They begin to spend more time together - he invites her to hang with his prehistoric friends, she tries to introduce him to her uptight friend group, and both of these efforts fail miserably. Despite their friends' skepticism, the two of them realize that their growing mutual respect and friendship is turning into something else. They are forced to deal with the world's outrage when their love is exposed.
...Basically, something that would still hold up as a compelling and humanizing romance, even if you took out the pterodactyl.
Here's what I got instead:
-first of all, I'm going to judge this story as if it had no pterodactyls in it. Because that's the thing about stories with stupid gimmicks like that. It still has to be, you know, A GOOD STORY. You need a solid framework on which to hang the absurd. And that was completely lacking here.
-Shiels is The Worst, omg. NO ONE ACTS LIKE THIS. No teenage girl in the history of ever, and quite possibly no human being. She's completely irrational and self-centered, and don't try to tell me it was some pterodactyl pheromone thing (though we never actually get any legit explanation as to why people, and women in particular, are so affected by Pyke's presence) because it wasn't every other member of the student body breaking up with their perfectly nice nerdy boyfriend to fling themselves at some random transfer student they'd only exchanged, like, 5 words with.
-I mean, I can take the Uptight Student Body President character type if it's well done. (I particularly enjoyed Brenna Yovanoff's "Places No One Knows," where the character is darn near sociopathic, but still written in a way that seems human and relatable. Actually, if you want to see a character like Shiels done right - down to the obsession with running - I suggest that book.) But I just hated Shiels so much. She didn't act like any sane human being would act, even under the influence of extreme infatuation.
-"I'm in love with him!" NO YOU'RE NOT, you've talked to him like twice and he's dating someone else! You literally just think he's hot. Even judged by the measure of other stupid YA instalove romances, this is deeply ridiculous - and quite honestly, harmful. People need to stop using "love" to describe lust - or worse, one-sided obsession. The only excuse for this shallow of a relationship is if this were going to be an erotica where the endgame was "character bangs pterodactyl," not "character dates and falls in love with pterodactyl." And even then, I've seen erotica with much better character and relationship building.
-the elements of the absurd in this book didn't work for me. The writing took itself WAY too seriously, and then it would just shove in something like "and then all the girls Pyke dances with get a purple nose!" This tone would have worked better if it really committed to the one element it promises on the cover: a pterodactyl. We get no explanation about where Pyke comes from or what his deal is, or even any character traits about him at all, not counting the physical. Instead we're meant to accept it as a nonsensical thing that happens, and move on. But the writing style won't let it be a silly parody, and so the whole thing just feels incoherent as a result. Either commit to the serious tone, and throw in some backstory, or commit to the goofy, and give it a dryly sarcastic self-mocking sort of narration.
-This would have worked better as a parody if it understood the genre it was parodying. But no. I hate to pull the gender card, but this was written by an adult man, who is not the target demographic for "Twilight"-esque books in the YA romance genre, and whose opinion of them is almost definitely disparaging. (How do I know that? *dramatically indicates the entirety of this book*) This is a book written as a wink-wink, nudge-nudge, isn't YA romance so stupid kind of parody. The problem is, the people who are most likely to read it ARE ALSO READERS OF THAT GENRE. So they're probably going to feel talked down to, and disrespected. Which was definitely how I felt during parts of this book. If you want to parody YA romance, you've got to poke fun at it in a way that people who actually like YA are still going to be like "haha yeah they've got some good points." We've got to be in on the joke, not the butt of it.
This could have been so funny, but it just ended up being annoying and tedious to read. I so wanted this to be great, but I just couldn't get behind it. :/