REVIEW: Flirtasaurus (book) by Erin Mallon

Flirtasaurus is a contemporary romantic comedy. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Calliope (aka Callie) has been studying to become a paleontologist and has just landed a museum internship that could be her ticket to her first real dig, if she doesn't completely blow it with Dr. Eileen Knowles, the current head of paleontological studies at the museum and the lead excavator on the dig Callie desperately wants to be part of.

Unfortunately, her efforts to become the kind of woman who commands respect in a male-dominated field don't always have the effect she'd like. And romance certainly isn't part of her plans. That doesn't stop her from becoming attracted to Ralph, a sexy, rumbly-voiced astronomer who narrates presentations at the museum's planetarium. And it doesn't stop Ralph from being interested in her right back.

I bought this at one of the Book Bonanzas I attended. Dinosaurs + a geeky heroine and hero romantic comedy pair sounded like fun. 

The first few pages of this felt like I was being pelted in the face with words. Good romantic banter has a rhythm to it. This, by contrast, was what you might get if you fed a toddler a bunch of sugar and then set them loose on a drum set. The zaniness never stopped. I needed a breather. 

I really liked Ralph, but surely there were better ways for him to add a bit of excitement to his life than throwing himself into Callie's destructive orbit? The woman desperately needed to chill. Considering how well Ralph reacted to Callie storming in on his planetarium narration and getting him in trouble with his boss, it's quite possible that all of Callie's chill (and then some) belonged to Ralph.

Many mistakes were made in the course of this story, and I found it difficult to believe that some of them weren't utterly career-wrecking. And that's not even getting into the non-career stuff. The family dinner with Callie's parents was horrific. It led to a really nice scene in which Callie and Ralph finally sat down and talked about their lives and feelings without a protective blanket of zaniness, but I don't know that that scene was good enough to make up for the things that made me cringe.

This was about all I could take, so I'm thankful to see that this was apparently the only work I purchased from this author.