I'm so suprised this book is rated so low. I COMPLETELY understand that this is a very niche erotica genre, but let's be real here, we ALL KNEW that this was Dinosaur/Human Erotica when we decided to read this(or any of Lola Faust's books for that matter), am I right? So when I see many other reviews(and I don't mean hate or drama by this) leaving no real commmentary about why they rated the book so low, I'm generally just kind of confused. I usually come into these reader spaces and read reviews to get informed about what kinds of things I can expect to get out of the book (what feelings it might evoke, what tropes will come up, how it might be plot-light or heavy, etc.). Its just really weird to see lots of low ratings paired with just kind of awe or suprise at theh "absurdity of the content" of the novel.
So, to offset that, I want to genuinely explain why I feel like this short novella is worth 4 stars. For starters, in just over 50 pagers, we see a whole saga play out about a future in which scientific genetic splicing managed to createa suave, well-mannered, intellecual, sentiant Velociraptor with a heightened hormone and pheramone production. When he was introduced into the scientific community, problems quickly arose, because he became a object of lust, and not nowing the reason and purpose for his creation, he was left to fufill the lustful fantasties of his visitors. Our FMC is a reporter who decides to take the task upon herself to interview "Don Juan" the Velociraptor and question his life purpose and why he seems to not care for other scientific purpose. Their interview is one of the turning points of the novel because we see hi question his own creation, we see the people surrounded by him pulled toward temptation, and we see our FMC doing her best to resist it. The obvious guess as to what happens in this interview, is not correct, and revealing more would be a spoiler, and I like to leave spoiler free reviews, so in that litte tidbit of plot set up (which I typically don't rehast in my reviews), I wanted to demonstrate how, yes, even a "simple dinosaur erotica" can have plot-density, character growth and development, and questions of morality and ethics. Maybe it's not "the next best american novel" or even "the best book of the year" but for a book on "dinosaur erotica", I really feel like it shouldn't be so easily dismissed with simple ratings because the premise is silly. That was a given. And I don't think this is a book that should be written off. The reason it wasnt a 4.5 or 5 star for me though, was because I felt like the ending was a bit rushed. I liked the wrap up in the epilogue but I would have rather seen that play out in description rather than an epilogue, but that's just me.