I was cringing from the first page of the book, which is the author profile . . . This is weird and attention-grabby enough on its own, it even includes a photo of Barrett looking like some kind of surfer bro. His bio ends with the line "Scott's wife and daughter inspire him to work hard every day and stay resilient in a fiercely competitive industry that often forces young writers to give up on their dreams." YIKES.

Unfortunately, it doesn't get any better. The story is nonsensical, involving dinosaurs and bullies and weird neighbors and time travel, but there is no logic system in place to explain any of it. The characters have no emotions or reactions to anything--in one scene, Charlie's two front teeth are violently ripped from his face and the only reaction after the fact is when a stranger asks him if it hurts he says "not really." It ends in a cliffhanger. This is middle grade in its worst iteration.

And don't even get me started on the lack of editing. In one chapter, Barrett spells pedaled (as in, riding a bike) as peddled, pedalled, and pedaled. He uses wrong character names. The punctuation is often wrong. The only thing more embarrassing than that is the fact that I spent actual money to acquire this book.