Jurassic Park
Book #1
by Michael Crichton

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Science fiction thriller

Up front, I will say that the movie probably influenced my reaction to the book, so if you’re looking for an unbiased opinion, you may want to go elsewhere. Jurassic Park is one of my top 3 favorite movie franchises, if not the top, even though I can certainly admit that there are some duds in there. I just don’t care; I love them anyway. I did read this book once, back in high school, most likely because of how much I already liked the first couple of movies then.

Now reading it again, I think I appreciated it even more than I did back then. Yes, the science gets a little long-winded, as do Malcolm’s speeches, so I might have skimmed a little. But that doesn’t keep me from enjoying a book. Outside of that, there is a lot of excitement, and even though Malcolm won’t shut up, I really liked his character. The race against time caused by the juvenile raptors on the boat headed for the mainland adds even higher stakes. And the book doesn’t make quite as many huge leaps about dinosaurs that paleontologists couldn’t possibly know for sure, but rather the characters have to learn about them and deduce what they can expect as they go.

I have seen the movie too many times to not have been constantly comparing the two as I read, and I even made some notes to help myself keep both the similarities and differences straight (some were things that were used in the 2nd movie, even though there’s also a 2nd book). But I do think the book stands on its own and should be read by fans of the movie, which is more famous than the book, but does owe its existence to the book.

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If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!