Audiobookclub - Listen of the month - Jurassic Park: A Novel by Michael Crichton

So, for the audiobook for this month’s book club, some idiot chose Jurassic Park.

Kathy over on Book Nook Shenanigans, I am absolutely looking at you.

But honestly? I’m really glad she did. Because despite being incredibly long, it was also incredibly brilliant—and one of those rare listens where you finish it slightly exhausted but very impressed.

Jurassic Park: A Novel by Michael Crichton

An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now humankind’s most thrilling fantasies have come true. Creatures extinct for eons roam Jurassic Park with their awesome presence and profound mystery, and all the world can visit them - for a price.

Until something goes wrong...

In Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton taps all his mesmerizing talent and scientific brilliance to create his most electrifying technothriller.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review — Oh look, another book, now with hands-on research

Daahhh… da-da-daahhh…

Daahhh… da-da-daahhh…

I opened Jurassic Park expecting the movie but in paperback form. You know the one: dinosaurs roar, kids scream, someone says “spare no expense,” and a paleontologist suddenly knows extremely specific dinosaur vision rules at exactly the right moment. What I got instead was a much grimmer, funnier, and far more honest experience—one where nobody knows anything for sure until a dinosaur is actively trying to eat them.

This is not a light dinosaur romp. This is a book that explains chaos theory, ignores it in practice, and then demonstrates it by having every system fail in sequence. The science is deeper, the tone is darker, and the story has a wicked sense of humor about human confidence. Every chapter feels like the book leaning in to say, “So anyway, that assumption you made? Yeah. About that.”

One of the most satisfying differences from the film is how the book handles Dr. Grant and the T. rex. There’s no magical moment of sudden expertise. Grant doesn’t know the T. rex can’t see movement—he figures it out the worst way possible: by being extremely close, extremely still, and extremely motivated to survive. It’s less “brilliant insight” and more “frantic field research conducted under immediate threat of death,” which feels… fair.

The dinosaurs themselves are also far less cinematic and far more alarming. The raptors are not just scary; they are methodical, curious, and disturbingly good at learning. They don’t announce themselves. They observe. They adapt. They behave like the kind of problem you definitely should not have engineered.

The book is similarly unforgiving with its characters. It has no interest in tidy hero arcs or inspirational speeches. People make bad decisions, cling to bad ideas, and are shocked—shocked—that bad outcomes follow. Confidence is treated as a flaw, not a virtue.

As an audiobook, this is a joy in the most stressful way possible. Calm explanations lull you into thinking someone might regain control, only for the narrative to gently set that thought on fire. You keep expecting a turnaround. You do not get one.

By the end, Jurassic Park feels less like a dinosaur adventure and more like a brutal, hilarious reminder that nature does not care about your plans, your park maps, or your certainty. If you loved the movie but want something sharper, darker, and significantly more amused by human panic, this audiobook is a five-star experience—and proof that sometimes the book lets people earn their knowledge the hard way.

This book is well worth reading, or listening to. You can get it at the moment for free with audio-membership.https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jurassic-Park-A-Novel/dp/B00U8GUFAG 

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 Next Months audiobook is Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. 

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