Boy, with Accidental Dinosaur is a wild ride, darting between New West dinosaur rodeos, time travel, and a dystopian future ruled by biker gangs. I came for the dinosaurs and stayed for the breadth of unique characters. It’s a short book but we get many glimpses of this strange version of the world, told through snippets of life experiences from this group of unlikely friends/coworkers/lovers. The heartbreak and grief of a trying world mixes with hope and love to create one of the more unique reading experiences I’ve had recently.

When it comes to dinosaurs, I’m a ten year old in a nearly 40 year-old’s body. I love them, can’t get enough of them, and am way too excited when some kind of entertainment comes long featuring them. To say I was ecstatic at the first sight of this book is an understatement. They weren’t perfectly rendered but at the end of the day I didn’t care. I got to imagine watching a dinosaur rodeo, which I can’t say has ever entered my head before now, and that was totally worth it.

As a novella, there was limited space to explore the back stories of so many characters, but I think it was done well. We see into this mess of a future as much as we need to, enough to see why this band of friends holds onto one another so closely. From endless warring militias to religious zealots to general hatred of anyone different, it paints a stark picture that shows why diversions and entertainment are something that never go away. When hope is gone and things are bleak, it’s entertainment that can transport you to another time, in this instance all the way back to the dinosaurs. The main character is living his dream as a rodeo rider, a dream he discovered from watching videos of riders as a kid. He saw what he wanted to be and in becoming just that, he’s setting the stage for the next set of kids to dream their way out of a difficult life. It’s surprisingly hopeful, ending on a high note on the back of a triceratops – an ending that left me just as excited as the opening sentences.