So. Much. Fun. 

Crichton does plot and atmosphere super well. It was tense and creepy and gory in all the right places. The 'science' was entertaining too, and the paragraphs of explanations, or conversations about Malcolm's philosophical musings, were never boring. 

However, the characterizations were extremely flat,

(is there a dumber villain than Hammond?)

and occasionally inconsistent.

(Genarro going from useless to courageous, and back again)

And the dialogue? Hilarious. It typically followed one of two patterns:

1. A character says something dumb or asks a question, allowing another character to soapbox for a while. 

2. Inane, doofy, contradictory, or bizarrely unrealistic quips between characters. Ex. Grant, upon hearing the explanation as to how they cloned the dinosaurs, saying: "I'll be damned - that just might work." ...despite the fact that he has already seen dinosaurs? So obviously it worked. OR this hilarious exchange:

And yet, I loved all of that too. You know when something is so bad that you love it? My go-to example is Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger (my favourite christmas movie), or maybe Spice World. That's how I felt about this book. Even the bits I would have hated in any other book were done so poorly that - when paired with all of the amazing bits - the overall effect was charming. Like the pacing? Sometimes things that seemed really big would happen so quickly or with such little fanfare that it was disorienting.

(the entire ending is kind of like that)

And yet I loved it! Things would happen out of nowhere, and I would just laugh out loud, think to myself 'oh Crichton, you silly guy', and carry on.