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A review by kel_sea_bb
The Dinosaur Artist by Paige Williams
2.5
I was disappointed by this book. While I enjoyed Williams’ writing, The Dinosaur Artist is overall too long, too broad, and unfocused.
This book primarily suffers from a framing problem. It’s billed and presented as a story of a specific fossil smuggling/smuggler and lawsuit, and I would expect some background on specific characters in the narrative. What I was NOT expecting was a huge amount of information about the history of the American Museum of Natural History and a full history of Mongolia. Bios and full family histories are presented for people who aren’t impactful in the narrative, which feels distracting and unnecessary.
This framing issue makes the book feel too broad and sprawling. If I had picked up a book expecting a history of paleontology this would have fit the bill, but the story being told needed a harsh edit down. She also presents the international fossil thieves (all white men!) in a VERY flattering light, when I found myself completely unwilling to root for them, which made enjoying the narrative difficult.
Specific to the audiobook, the readers tone and cadence was fine, but there is a noticeable tinny echo in the recording which is VERY distracting at first, and there are a LOT of mispronunciations of standardized words (names of famous people like Antonin Scalia, dinosaur names, and others) which feels extremely unprofessional. I also didn’t appreciate the bizarre accents applied to the Mongolian speakers and no one else, including brits and Americans from accented regions.
This book primarily suffers from a framing problem. It’s billed and presented as a story of a specific fossil smuggling/smuggler and lawsuit, and I would expect some background on specific characters in the narrative. What I was NOT expecting was a huge amount of information about the history of the American Museum of Natural History and a full history of Mongolia. Bios and full family histories are presented for people who aren’t impactful in the narrative, which feels distracting and unnecessary.
This framing issue makes the book feel too broad and sprawling. If I had picked up a book expecting a history of paleontology this would have fit the bill, but the story being told needed a harsh edit down. She also presents the international fossil thieves (all white men!) in a VERY flattering light, when I found myself completely unwilling to root for them, which made enjoying the narrative difficult.
Specific to the audiobook, the readers tone and cadence was fine, but there is a noticeable tinny echo in the recording which is VERY distracting at first, and there are a LOT of mispronunciations of standardized words (names of famous people like Antonin Scalia, dinosaur names, and others) which feels extremely unprofessional. I also didn’t appreciate the bizarre accents applied to the Mongolian speakers and no one else, including brits and Americans from accented regions.