Review: "Dino Stud" by Lola Faust

Dino Stud by Lola Faust
Published February 2023 via Storm Crow Press
★★★★

There are only two pieces of information that you need to decide if this is the book for you:

1) The cover

2) The fact that the promotional materials for the book include the following "advance praise":

★★★★★ "Exactly what you think it is!" - Reader review
★ "Oh my dear lord. Tiktok sent me here and now my life is worse for it" - Reader review

If you see all that and laugh, you're in the right place. If not, well. I can't help you. This is basically...well, take Jurassic Park and throw in a twist or two and a saucy romance. The writing is on par with any other self-aware romance novel, but the plot doesn't make all that much sense, and the entire thing takes place over the span of about a day (insta-love galore). But then...I didn't read it for anything to make sense, and I can safely say that I got what I came for.

Now. Quibbles. There must be quibbles:
- I would have liked more dinosaurs.
- The book could have been a bit smuttier. (If the heroine has to go commando in the rush to flee a rampaging dino, surely it's not too much to ask that that comes into play later...)
- More camp! Reid has a gallery of dinosaur paintings—is there really not an etching among them?

Whether or not I can recommend this to you depends entirely on your sense of humor (and perhaps your kinks, but those are none of my business). If the cover is ever turned into postcards, though, I will be buying a pack and sending them without explanation to everyone I know.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a free review copy through NetGalley.