When I was in the second grade, my mother let me take a summer class where you learned how to draw dinosaurs. I was the only girl in the class, but I When I was in the second grade, my mother let me take a summer class where you learned how to draw dinosaurs. I was the only girl in the class, but I didn't care, because DINOSAURS. Every autumn, when the maple leaves fell from our trees, I also thought about whether they would leave an imprint on our slate walkway stones and become fossils one day. I cared much more about the hall of minerals at the natural history museum than I did the famous jewels on display nearby, and I still have more fossils and minerals in my house than jewelry.
So my love of dinosaurs is deeply ingrained. I don't trust people who don't like them.
How delighted I am to come across this book that combines that one favorite subject with another favorite subject (Victorians!). The extra bonus is that it's so well-researched and well-written, and fascinating from beginning to end. I really appreciated how the author provided so much context for that point in history, explaining the religious mindset of the day and how that had an effect on how the emergence of geology/evolution was perceived, as well as the surprising origins of many things very well-known to us today, including the Shell Oil Company. The author traces various key figures who helped form our understanding of dinosaurs, and shows us how lively debates and professional rivalry shaped the course of history. Nowhere is his sympathetic view more clear than his dive into Mary Anning's contributions to paleontology: her astounding discoveries of two complete skeletons were cornerstones in the field, along with her drawings, observations, and the many other fossils she unearthed. But Mary was never fully recognized for her work in her lifetime, as she was taken advantage of or passed over again and again due to her youth and sex; it was, in fact, a hundred years after her untimely death before women were even admitted into the Geological Society of London.
Anyway, if you are at all interested in fossils or dinosaurs or interesting historical figures or the Victorian era, this is such an enjoyable read. And it makes me wish that I, like one of the enthusiasts featured in the book, was able to squander my fortune on fossils!
Audio Notes: The audiobook, read by Cassandra Campbell, is excellent....more
The paleontology is interesting, but the paleontologist is not. And unfortunately, the science takes a back seat to a mystery that is never enga*yawn*
The paleontology is interesting, but the paleontologist is not. And unfortunately, the science takes a back seat to a mystery that is never engaging, supernatural elements that are neither scary nor exciting, themes that are undeveloped, and personal backgrounds and relationships that fail to incite any emotion. ...more
Free association with THE MUSEUM OF HEARTBREAK! What words and phrases come to mind when you think of this book, Wendy?
Haphazard. Trying too hard. QuiFree association with THE MUSEUM OF HEARTBREAK! What words and phrases come to mind when you think of this book, Wendy?
Haphazard. Trying too hard. Quirky without enough substance.
The thing about humorous prose is it has to feel effortless--and it has to have some order even if it doesn't appear to. This book felt all over the place; from the structure to the tenses to the things the characters were interested in, I felt like we were bouncing back and forth in a pinball machine. There's no real character development to speak of, either--everyone gets assigned some traits (this is the guy who draws and reads comic books, this is the mean girl who has no redeeming qualities, this is the best friend who shares a few memories with the MC, these are the eccentric parents, and this is the cute guy who...what does he do? Oh yeah, eventually you learn he likes Kerouac) and that's kind of the extent of the thought and depth behind it. Zero chemistry, zero stakes. I don't even know why we're supposed to like the narrator, to be honest; she's not awful, and I made myself be patient with the silly decisions she makes, but she's really not that interesting.
It pains me immensely to not love this book, because it talks about dinosaurs so damned much and I LOVE dinosaurs. And the author's bio says her heroes are Anne Shirley and Harriet the Spy. Come on! The bait and switch of that allure versus the story I actually read is so upsetting. This book tries so very hard to be charming, but it's too unfocused, too delighted by its own cleverness and tangential side stories, and too lacking in characters and relationships that feel complex or moving.
There are a few cute moments, and Ephraim is the best part about the book--he of wonderful dinosaur drawings and presents and humor, but even he's not much more than the great BFF and an object of affection. Come to think of it, that's probably the biggest issue here--that the characters in this book are treated like objects, like something you'd arrange in the diorama pictured on the book jacket, rather than people with deep feelings and thoughts and dreams. But even the grandest of dollhouses feels empty if you don't fill them with an interesting story.
An advance copy was provided by the publisher for this review. This gets an extra star because of the dinosaurs alone....more
Wendy Darling
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dinosaurs
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