Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

Jurassic Park was originally published back in 1990. It became a bestseller, was turned into a blockbuster movie franchise, and was nominated as one America's best loved novels by The Great American Read on PBS. Michael Crichton, who died in 2008, published his first novel in 1966 and remains the only writer to have a number one book, television show, and movie in the same year. He even has an ankylosaurid dinosaur named after him, the Crichtonpelta benxiensis. It deals with death, gore, some light sexism and classism, injury detail and blood.

John Hammond, the wealthy, eccentric CEO of the InGen company, has done what many believed to be impossible. For years, InGen and the Hammond Foundation has been funding dig sites of dinosaur fossils in many areas of the world. They've also been buying up as much amber as possible. Using the amber, they've been able to extract dinosaur DNA and bring dinosaurs back to life. Now, it's time to put the park to the test. John Hammond invites Dr. Alan Grant (paleontologist) and Dr. Ellie Satler (paleobotanist), as well as Dr. Ian Malcolm (mathematician) to see the dinosaurs in the flesh and the park that he has created for them to live in on an island off of Costa Rica. He intends to turn this island into a theme park of sorts: Jurassic Park. But as Dr. Malcolm keeps telling him, you cannot plan for everything, and the weekend becomes a nightmare for everyone involved. Not everyone makes it off the island alive.

Let me give you a little background information: the summer that I turned 7, I went on vacation with my grandparents. We drove to Montana, where my grandfather's daughter and her family lived. While we were there, we saw Jurassic Park in theaters. Then we went back to their house and I was forced to sleep by myself, in a pitch black living room, in a house that I've never been in before. Safe to say, I was terrified. And I remained terrified of the movie for all of my childhood, adolescence, and most of my adult years. But I have recently become more brave and decided to branch out and read the book. And I loved it! Holy Tyrannosaurus Rex, Batman, the amount of research that went into this book is incredible. I feel like I learned a lot but I did not feel bogged down by technical jargon. The book kept me interested, even before anyone had been eaten by a dinosaur (spoiler alert: several people are eaten by dinosaurs). It was thrilling, it was intense, it was suspenseful, but it was never scary. I really liked it and will be reading the sequel, Jurassic World, pretty soon. After reading the book, I finally faced my fears and rewatched the movie. As a personal win, I was not scared at all, but it's probably a surprise to no one at all that I liked the book more. Now my husband is urging me to read Sphere as well, it's one of his favorite's my Michael Crichton.

I'm giving Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton 4.5 stars out of 5. It was excellent and I'm not surprised it was nominated as one of America's favorite novels, I can see how it could appeal to a wide variety of people.

To see all of Michael Crichton's works, visit https://www.michaelcrichton.com/

Pairs well with an empanada and listening to an episode of Planet Earth narrated by Richard Kiley.