My personal take on the book was it was really good for someone who knew a lot about dinosaurs or loved dinosaurs. Being someone who loves dinosaurs I was okay with it. There were parts where they used terminology that I didn't understand which was okay but when you read a book you want to have a sense of what is going on and know what the text is saying. If they had explained the terminology they used better that would have been more helpful for me as a reader. The book did use a lot imagery and making your brain think which i thought was excellent. I couldn't really say I learned a lot about myself through this book since it well, wasn't really about humans to be honest it was about dinosaurs. What someone might get out of this book is they might really love dinosaurs after reading this and might want to go into a field involving dinosaurs or you be that person who finds out that they really could care less about dinosaurs and since it doesn't really pertain to them since they have been extinct for a long, long time. My personal preference is a liked the movies more probably since I watched all the movies first then read the books which was probably a bad idea. I will say this though if you are more of a visual person where you have to see it happening like myself then the book will be a little difficult to picture unless you have a really good imagination. If you do like sarcasm and a bit of bantering between people then you will find a lot of that in this book. If you asked me if I'd recommend this book to people I would say yes I would but don't expect a fast paced high action book. I mean there is action and intense parts but it does drag on for a little bit. Your opinions might be different than mine but this is coming from someone who only reads a book when it is one of those books you can't put down.