Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend was written by Alan Cumyn and first published in 2016. It is a strange, surreal story that focuses on the chaos that breaks out at a high school when its first ever interspecies transfer student enrolls. The novel stands alone, so you don’t have to read any of Cumyn’s other work to fully appreciate it.
Shiels Krane has everything under control. As student body chair, she’s super-efficient and so everything runs like clockwork so long as everyone follows her instructions to the letter. She has a good life, a supportive boyfriend and hopes to one day soon head off to college to learn political anthropology from her hero, Lorraine Meins. Everything is coming up roses for her until the day that Pyke crash lands outside her school.
Pyke is a pterodactyl, the first of his kind of ever attend high school, and Shiels anticipates that his arrival will cause no end of problems. There’s no way that the other students and their parents would ever accept a prehistoric monster. However, she could not have been more wrong. Pyke seems to possess a strange animal attraction that drives all of the girls wild and Shiels is horrified to discover that even she is not immune to his charms.
After she is filmed in a compromising position with Pyke at the school dance, she’s horrified to discover that her grasp on life is slipping. She’s suddenly one of the least popular people at school and her nose has turned bright purple, putting a strain on her relationship. With everything she believed she wanted now in question it’s up to Shiels to decide who she really wants to be, even if that person is a pterodactyl’s girlfriend.
Arkham Reviews 