Book 6: “A book that became a movie”

Time for the second Reading Challenge book from my week of vacation! The line item for this one was “a book that became a movie.” My hubby and I were chatting about this particular movie during our trip, and when I finished Catch-22 with a few days to spare I decided to dive into this one on ebook. Yes, it’s “Jurassic Park”!

Jurassic Park is by no means the most jewel-like piece of literary genius I’ve ever read, but it was a pretty fun “beach read”. A lot of the issues people have with plot holes in the movie are actually more explained in the book, though the explanations do seem kind of token, as though Crichton was trying to anticipate what people would say and explain it up front. Overall it does seem like a book that started with the idea “dinosaurs running loose and eating people” and backtracked its plot from there, but it gives a decent enough rationale for what it is. I thought the descriptions of the dinosaurs were creative, and the range of behaviors that the scientists weren’t expecting were just barely plausible given the world of the novel. I did find myself smacking my head at their stupidity several times throughout the book and thinking “how could you not expect that?!”, but it was certainly entertaining. As long as I didn’t take it too seriously it was fun to read the extreme train wreck of one eccentric old man’s misguided dream to build a dinosaur zoo. My recommendation? Turn your brain off at the door, and have fun reading about Hammond drowning his denial in ice cream.

Up Next: “A book you were supposed to read in high school but didn’t.” Guess it’s time to go back to school…

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