Book Review: The Evolution of Claire by Tess Sharpe

“A new circle of evolution, of prey and predator and adaptation, is already beginning . . . and I’m here near the start of it all, walking in its footsteps. Literally.”

Claire Dearing. Chapter 11, page 145

 

The original Jurassic Park movie from 1993 ranks as one of my Top 10 All-Time Favorite Movies. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve see the film. The second and third movies in the franchise I like, but don’t rank that high. The fourth, Jurassic World from 2015 brought back a lot of the original fun for me. In particular I was taken with the character of Claire Dearing played by Bryce Dallas Howard. Claire was obviously intelligent, driven, and brave.

When I heard a young adult novel was releasing that focused on Claire’s story pre-Jurassic World, I was intrigued. Okay, more than intrigued. I may have have squealed a bit scaring the cat.

JW

The Evolution of Claire by Tess Sharpe takes readers to 2004 as Claire Dearing has just finished her first year of college and is about to embark on the summer internship of a lifetime—interning at Jurassic World theme park the year before it even opens to the public. This Claire, 19-year old Claire, is not the woman we know from 2015’s Jurassic World, the movie. She’s young and idealistic, and at this stage of her life would never call a dinosaur an “asset.”

I like animal-loving Claire, who feels deeply and wants to make a difference by going into politics so she can create real change for animals, advocating for their rights.

“All it takes is one person, determined to rise, to get enough power to a voice to the voiceless.” (page 8).

She’s fiercely determined to follow this path and the opportunity to spend the summer interning at the Jurassic World theme park and impressing the well-connected and wealthy Mr. Masrani is too good to pass up. The interns each have a different focus from Ronnie who’s security to Eric the filmmaker and his twin sister Tanya, the botanist. There’s also Justin, Art, and the know-it-all Wyatt.

Claire has her hands full as an intern, from helping Dr. Wu in the lab to helping a young, wounded triceratops and figuring out how to keep a playful brachiosaurus from playing ball with the park’s gyrospheres. As the summer progresses, Claire makes friends and even becomes interested in another intern, but things start to go awry. She uncovers a journal left behind from the mysterious intern group that was on the island prior to her group—the interns no one talks about. What happened with that group? Who was Iz and what had she discovered?

“With discovery come secrets,” Bertie says. “As well as the threat of them getting exposed to the wrong people. People who might want to exploit or harm our dinosaurs.”

Bertie (Head Trainer)  Chapter 21, page 269

Overall, I enjoyed The Evolution of Claire. It kept me turning pages and it was interesting to watch Claire’s character develop. There were ample fun “Jurassic Park” style moments as well. I think the trigger for Claire’s evolution makes sense and I’m curious to see where the franchise will take her young character if we get another book, and I hope we get another book.