Blog Tour + Review & Giveaway: Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend by Alan Cumyn

25728101 Title & Author: Hot Pterodactl Boyfriend by Alan Cumyn

Genre: Young Adult- Contemporary/Sci-fi, Romance

Release Date: March 22, 2016

Series: Standalone

Publisher: Atheneum/Caitlyn Dloughy Books

Source: ARC Via the Publisher

Description: Sheils is very pleased with her perfectly controlled life (controlling others while she’s at it). She’s smart, powerful, the Student Body Chair, and she even has a loving boyfriend. What more could a girl ask for?

But everything changes when the first-ever interspecies transfer student, a pterodactyl named Pyke, enrolls at her school. There’s something about him—something primal—that causes the students to lose control whenever he’s around. Even Sheils, the seemingly perfect self-confident girl that she is, can’t keep her mind off of him, despite her doting boyfriend and despite the fact that Pyke immediately starts dating Jocelyn, the school’s fastest runner who Sheils has always discounted as a nobody.

Pyke, hugely popular in a school whose motto is to embrace differences, is asked to join a band, and when his band plays at the Autumn Whirl dance, his preternatural shrieking music sends everyone into a literal frenzy. No one can remember what happened the next day, but Shiels learns that she danced far too long with Pyke, her nose has turned purple, and she may have done something with her boyfriend that she shouldn’t have. Who’s in control now?

Hilarious and relatable (despite the dinosaur), Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend is about a teen who must come to terms with not being in control of all things at all times, break free of her mundane life, discover who her true self is, and, oh, finding out that going primal isn’t always a bad thing.

Review

I went into this with my mind open and my love for dinosaurs at an all time high. I knew this was going to be either a really ridiculously amazing read or a total fail. I am happy to say it was pretty darn ridiculous and down right funny. This isn’t something you can really take seriously, I mean its contemporary YA with a dino in it. That’s about as normal as the Lux series is with it’s crazy Alien shenanigans. Still, I found this laugh out loud funny and very original.

I don’t give out spoilers on PTBN but you’ll find some very funny and sometimes confusing twists in this book. Pyke is definitely a pterodactyl but he seems to cause a very unique reaction to humans if he spends too much time around them. This book is great for painting a clear picture of how people perceive and treat others that are not like them. Pyke could have just as easily been replaced as a LGBTQ member of society or anyone else that does not fall into the cookie cutter mold society calls normal. He could have been a non binary person or a foreign exchange student and I think it would have all felt the same. Which is great. Seriously, I love things that help open peoples minds and make them realize just how negative they are acting. Even if its written as a massive purple pterodactyl.

I’ll admit there a few things in here that really had me going…HUH? or WHAAAA? But I would never say in a negative way. It was more along the lines of so super hilariously cringe worthy funny that just always seemed to catch me off guard. I mean, people fall in love with a dinosaur how funny is that?

Overall if your looking for something super funny, love purple flying dinosaurs and enjoy semi-realistic contemporary* then I highly recommend this to you.

*see Pterodactyl as student

Alan Cumyn by Gwen Cumyn colour

ABOUT ALAN CUMYN:

lan Cumyn is the author of twelve wide-ranging and often wildly different novels. A two-time winner of the Ottawa Book Award, he has also had work shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award, the Giller Prize, and the Trillium Award. He teaches through the Vermont College of Fine Arts and is a past Chair of The Writers’ Union of Canada. He lives in Ontario, Canada.

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