A review by parkerpng
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

adventurous tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I entered my dinosaur era last year so naturally I had to read this. I haven’t seen the movie so I went into this completely fresh. 

The overall theme of this book is about how nature cannot be controlled, and chaos will ensue when humans try to do so. The mathematician, Malcolm, served as narrative exposition for much of these themes.

The other characters include a paleontologist, a plant expert, an engineer, a computer scientist, a a lawyer, a lunatic rich man and his two grandchildren. 

Hammond, the rich man, is a distinctly selfish and evil human. All he cares about is profit, and creating something nobody has done before. He ignores all warnings and throws many people into danger without acknowledging the possibility that it can and will be his fault. 

Grant, the palaeontologist, and the children Tim and Lex are a big focus of this book, being the more innocent characters, who experience a good chunk of the drama firsthand. Their wit and bravery (well, maybe not Lex) allows them to overcome any obstacle in their way.

I think that for when this book was written, they managed to paint a pretty good picture of the dinosaurs. We’re always making new discoveries, so I kept that in mind whenever they described the T-Tex as having “leathery skin” or the compys being “yellow with black spots”. The drama is well built up and hits like a truck, relentless and constant.  

A lot of the other characters are decently written, and are best experienced by reading for yourself.

I think the ending is fine. 

This was a book I looked forward to picking up every day. It was a lot of fun to read. Although it felt really long too. Perhaps I’ll pick up the Lost World some day.

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