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A review by ricarmoo
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Jurassic Park is a great book. I recently got given a copy of the sequel and decided to reread this one first to see if it was as good as I remembered it being. Thankfully, I’m happy to say that it lived up to my memories of reading the novel the first time round.
Fans of the movie will definitely enjoy reading the book - the plot is largely the same with some deviations in how it all plays out. I think the movie does well to keep most of the same beats going but while maintaining a faster pace. It does cut some things out, and I think some of the river sequence would have been really good to see on screen - especially seeing a certain large theropod take to the water and begin swimming….
The only really weak areas of the book for me are with a couple of the characters and with the ending. Mostly the characters are fine - good even - but Lex particularly is quite grating to me. She is a child and therefore is probably acting relatively realistically, but she is quite annoying at times - especially during the computer sequence. Malcolm as well frustrates me a little, but that’s mostly because he has a few extended monologues about Chaos Theory and the dangers of science - in itself fine, but slightly longwinded for my taste in amongst the action and tension. The ending I think is slightly too extended - we’ve had the big resolve and the defeat of the “baddies” and then the story just sort of keeps going. I think it would have been a stronger ending to omit the nest sequence and finish with the defeat of the raptors - this is one of the only things I think the movie does actively better.
Overall, a great read and the gold standard in Paleo-fiction. If you haven’t read it before, do!
Fans of the movie will definitely enjoy reading the book - the plot is largely the same with some deviations in how it all plays out. I think the movie does well to keep most of the same beats going but while maintaining a faster pace. It does cut some things out, and I think some of the river sequence would have been really good to see on screen - especially seeing a certain large theropod take to the water and begin swimming….
The only really weak areas of the book for me are with a couple of the characters and with the ending. Mostly the characters are fine - good even - but Lex particularly is quite grating to me. She is a child and therefore is probably acting relatively realistically, but she is quite annoying at times - especially during the computer sequence. Malcolm as well frustrates me a little, but that’s mostly because he has a few extended monologues about Chaos Theory and the dangers of science - in itself fine, but slightly longwinded for my taste in amongst the action and tension. The ending I think is slightly too extended - we’ve had the big resolve and the defeat of the “baddies” and then the story just sort of keeps going. I think it would have been a stronger ending to omit the nest sequence and finish with the defeat of the raptors - this is one of the only things I think the movie does actively better.
Overall, a great read and the gold standard in Paleo-fiction. If you haven’t read it before, do!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal death, Death
Minor: Child death