First off I have to say that this is probably going to be my favorite book of the year. For several reasons. First, it’s about a female who loves dinosaurs as much as I do, and it was so freaking funny! And on a total side note, in a way it reminds me of the very first novel I ever tried to write, one that I debate about going back and finishing, but now I really want to! Of course my story was nowhere NEAR this funny.

First there was the hilarious “meet-cute” bit at the beginning where neither heard the other’s name correctly at first. She thought his name was Alf, which, ha ha, but hey, it’s hard not to agree that Ralph seems like it wouldn’t be a great name to shout out in the throes of ecstasy, “Oh Ralph, yes, right there, harder!” LOL!! And then when people try to get her name and it’s like “What-a-pee?” for Calliope. But what made that even better was when she told someone her name, and they said they’d been pronouncing it totally different because they’d only ever read it before. I laughed so hard at that part, because I did the exact same thing with the name Hermione between reading the books before the movies came out.

Now it was easy to fall in love with Ralph right away, his snark just was exactly what I go for. However then he let slip that he was vegan and I was afraid I’d have trouble with him at that, since I’m such a “meatasaurus” as the line in Jurassic Park somewhat goes. But oh my gosh, blaming Ralph’s asteroid for killing Calliope’s dinosaurs. So freaking funny.

This isn’t your usual sexy scenes all over the place book like you might expect after the types of books the author often reads as an audiobook narrator, but I have to say that first scene in chapter 16 of this book is probably going to go down as one of my all-time favorite steamy scenes in any book by any author. And, it’s not even for the steam-factor, it’s for how hard I was laughing as I read. How I had to put my e-reader down and just roll onto my side in my bed and laugh until I couldn’t laugh anymore. Then I had to go get a drink of water for my poor throat after all that laughing. I picked my e-reader back up to try to dive back into the story, but when I reread a line from where I had ended up, the giggles overtook me again for a few more minutes. I’m giggling to myself right now as I type this thinking of that scene.

This book was so good I had to go back and buy the author’s first audiobook, These Walls Can Talk. And even though I keep entering contests to try to win a physical copy of the book, I know I’m going to end up not being able to wait and just order a physical copy for myself soon. Not to mention I’ll probably end up buying the audiobook with an Audible Credit because I want to listen to it. That’s opposite of how a lot of things go. I usually listen to a book, then end up buying the physical copy to put on my shelf to go back to. But this is one I need to own every available format possible. I’m also soooooooo excited that this is a series, and I can’t wait for Mabel’s book, because I feel like I’m going to definitely connect with Mabel and her “forgetableness” too!

One negative thing, and it comes from my dino-loving, Earth Science major, paleontology background, they weren’t flying dinosaurs, they were flying reptiles. Sorry, couldn’t help myself.

Oh yeah, and how do we get Erin Mallon to attend Book Bonanza 2021? Because I really need to meet her and fangirl!

Review first published at Lisa Loves Literature.