Raptoriva by Victoria Rivera
472 pages
Published 2024
Read from September 23 to September 25
Rating: 2 out of 5
Years ago, after
Jurassic World nudged a modest new dino fad back into the mainstream, I wondered: Where are the YA dinosaur novels? Sure, we got
The Evolution of Claire. But where were the plucky, misunderstood teen heroines who shoot arrows into raptors and fret about which boy to kiss while they overthrow the tyrannical (or perhaps tyrannosaurical) government?
A couple months ago, I got a TikTok by this author promoting this book, and my questions were answered: Self-publishing. That’s where the YA dinosaurs went.
You know I just had to read it, out of professional courtesy (as a future self-publisher of dinosaur fiction) if nothing else.
As I’ve said before, I’m not in the habit of trashing self-published and indie press books. Honestly, as self-pub books go, Raptoriva is solid. There’s the occasional typo and malapropism, but Rivera’s prose is standard for YA romantasy, neither better nor worse than you’d expect. YA romantasy isn’t my genre, though, and my biggest dissatisfaction with this book—that it’s a drip-feed of tropes and archetypes instead of a novel—is the fault of a highly commercialized genre’s increasingly formulaic expectations. Blame capitalism, as with so many other ills in life.
Raptoriva is
The Hunger Games meets
Dinotopia. Misunderstood teen archer (Qora) and teen fighter with a secret princely past (Ninan) both volunteer for the Venture, a deadly ritual gauntlet with a significant prize at the end. Even though the setting lacks electronic technology, competitors are still expected to have reality TV-grade storylines. The Venture’s twists and turns are broadcast back to audiences in Runaqa’s cities via sketch artists and heralds. There’s even a tryouts scene where entrants have to prove themselves with a special talent.
I liked the Andean flavor Rivera gives her setting, but the extinct animals, jumbled together from all time periods and every region of the globe, are mostly just Latin names checked off in the background, rarely charismatic presences in their own right. Most of the action involves fighting with other contestants. The characters even have magic rocks that keep dinosaurs away. You could do a search-and-replace for most species, swapping them for horses and drakes and griffins and the like, and change basically nothing about the story.
The one dinosaur that has any screen time, a giant Spinosaurus, is straight out of Jurassic Park III. No research on the animal’s potential ecology or behavior, no updated depiction to follow more recent hypotheses, just pure unreconstructed movie monster from a quarter-century ago.
Still, I enjoyed Raptoriva enough that I’m open to keeping up with the series. We can only hope dinosaurs figure more into the sequels, as something more than their names.
