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A review by ijill14
Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend by Alan Cumyn
1.0
Review originally posted on journeyintotheshelves.tumblr.com & journeyintotheshelves.wordpress.com
**I received an eARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing. This has had no bearing on this review.
Going into this book, I knew it was going to be different and strange. (I mean, with a title like Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend how could it not?) And as I read it, I definitely found it to be different and strange, however not necessarily in a good way.
The novel follows Shiels, the Student Body Chair of her high school, a seemingly normal high school until, one day, when a pterodactyl becomes a student. From then on, the school and the student body is influenced and changed by this prehistoric being for better and for worse.
I had quite a few problems with this book. The main one being how the normal and abnormal never completely blended together. The pterodactyl - Pyke - becoming a student was both regarded as unusual and something that has happened elsewhere. However, the reader is never given any information outside of this one instance. Even in Shiels’ life as the “normal” and “abnormal” collided as her life became intrinsically tied to Pyke’s, the worlds were still being treated as two depart entities which distracted from the overarching plot.
I also wasn’t fan of the writing. Most of it was okay, though it did get a bit frantic and jumpy at times as it tried to emulate the tone of the action and Sheils’ thoughts. My biggest issue was with some of the phrases and word choices that Cumyn had Sheils say. Not only did some of her diction seem out of character for her, but for a girl to say or think in general. It seemed very disconnected from reality, sometimes even mores than the fact that there was a pterodactyl walking around.
Overall, Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend was a disappointing read that just couldn’t find the beneficial balance between weird and strange.
**I received an eARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing. This has had no bearing on this review.
Going into this book, I knew it was going to be different and strange. (I mean, with a title like Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend how could it not?) And as I read it, I definitely found it to be different and strange, however not necessarily in a good way.
The novel follows Shiels, the Student Body Chair of her high school, a seemingly normal high school until, one day, when a pterodactyl becomes a student. From then on, the school and the student body is influenced and changed by this prehistoric being for better and for worse.
I had quite a few problems with this book. The main one being how the normal and abnormal never completely blended together. The pterodactyl - Pyke - becoming a student was both regarded as unusual and something that has happened elsewhere. However, the reader is never given any information outside of this one instance. Even in Shiels’ life as the “normal” and “abnormal” collided as her life became intrinsically tied to Pyke’s, the worlds were still being treated as two depart entities which distracted from the overarching plot.
I also wasn’t fan of the writing. Most of it was okay, though it did get a bit frantic and jumpy at times as it tried to emulate the tone of the action and Sheils’ thoughts. My biggest issue was with some of the phrases and word choices that Cumyn had Sheils say. Not only did some of her diction seem out of character for her, but for a girl to say or think in general. It seemed very disconnected from reality, sometimes even mores than the fact that there was a pterodactyl walking around.
Overall, Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend was a disappointing read that just couldn’t find the beneficial balance between weird and strange.