Flirtasaurus by Erin Mallon
Series: Natural History #1
Narrator: Erin Mallon
Published by Self on July 15, 2020
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Romance, Romantic Comedy
Pages: 213
Format: Audiobook
Source: Audible
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My name is Calliope and "I bone for a living." Kidding. I am studying to be a paleontologist though. It's the only thing I've ever wanted to be, and I have finally landed the perfect museum internship to make all of my dino-loving dreams come true.

Trouble is, everyone wants me to be a gentle, loving sort of creature, but I'm more of the T-Rex type by nature - the kind who is determined to stomp and tear her way through any obstacle in order to get what she wants.

But when a sexy, rumbly-voiced astronomer plummets into my orbit and threatens to break open my hard little heart, my career and my whole way of looking at the world is suddenly on the line.

The dinosaurs didn't see their asteroid coming.

And I sure as hell wasn't prepared for mine.

Erin Mallon has become one of my favorite audiobook narrators, so when I saw that she had written and narrated her own romantic comedy that included dinosaurs (one of my favorite things) I knew I had to give it a listen! While is was a little over the top and cringey, I was entertained. As always, my main points are bolded.

1. The meet cute at the very beginning of the book was really fun. Calliope is stuck in an elevator at the museum on the first day of her new internship, and she “meets” a guy by yelling at him for help through the elevator door. He decides to wait with her and chat until someone arrives to help her, but then they separated when the fire alarm goes off. She can’t hear his name or where she’s supposed to meet him after she gets out of the building, and that’s that. They miss meeting. Luckily, they both work there so it’s very likely they will stumble across each other soon. What a cute way to begin a story!

2. Calliope… is a very annoyingly neurotic character. She had her moments where I really liked her (like when she communicated her love of dinosaurs and science), but for the most part I pretty much couldn’t stand her. She clearly feels that she is better than everyone in the world. She’s so easily offended and goes off on these long, ranty dialogues without even realizing what she’s saying and who might be hearing her. She’s quick to tell people off when she assumes she knows what they mean. Sometimes she was right but took her rant too far, and sometimes she was wrong and had to backpedal and apologize for her behavior. She’s quick to open her mouth and insert her foot at the worst times, and gets herself into trouble frequently. She just doesn’t come off as a strong, educated, professional woman and that bothered me because female scientists already don’t get enough respect. I wish she had fit the role of a respectable one instead of just further perpetuating antiquated ideas about women in science.

3. Ralph is great! He’s really sweet and caring and I love his quiet, strong personality. I hated the voice style choice for him in the narration, though. He sounded incredibly whiny, and my face actually scrunched up listening to him sometimes.

4. There’s a couple side characters that I liked. Otto is an elderly man who hangs out at the museum sketching the creatures on exhibit. He’s a sweet, funny guy that gave me quirky grandpa vibes. Mabel is an entomologist on staff there, and she’s… so odd that you can’t help but find her to be endearing. I can’t even begin to be able to describe her, though. You kind of have to read her to believe her. She’s one of a kind, but sweet at her core.

5. The humor tries way too hard. I was literally cringing. There’s a scene involving psychedelic drugs and clumsy fooling around near a dinosaur skeleton and Calliope is convinced that that dinosaur is winking at her and cheering her on as she fumbles around before grasping Ralph’s *ahem* anatomy with both hands and pretending to swing from it like Tarzan. George of the Jungle scream and all. I’m sorry, but that was just too much for me. People are not really like this.

6. I’m sure that this book was written with an audiobook in mind because there is so. much. dialogue. I was fine listening (well, except for the fact that Ralph sounded very unappealing), but I think reading it would have been exhausting. I can see that it might be hard to tell who is speaking at times because it sounded like I was listening to a movie instead of a book. 

7. I think I like Erin Mallon as a narrator more than an author, and I feel really bad about that because she seems super nice.

All in all, this was fluffy, mindless entertainment. I’m not sure if I would have stuck with it if I were reading it, but it was fun to listen to while I was doing other things. It’s cringey, but I’m already interested in listening to the next book, Lovebug, because it’s about Mabel, so… I don’t know what that says about me and my opinions right now. LOL. I just have to know how that works out for her because she’s so… unique!