I also tried reading Jurassic park before that but didn’t make it past 75 pages before I simply lost interest. Michael Crichton wrote that book as an impossibly boring slog. When something is actually happening and meaningful it’s super interesting and well written, and I’m excited for what’s going to happen next, but then that’s all bogged down by three pages of unnecessary technical explanations for things I don’t care about. It’s like he can’t just get to the point. It took all the fun out of what was otherwise an exremely fun read. I might pick it up again sometime and try to finish it, but I can’t see myself spending any time on it soon.
This mirrors my experience with Crichton. The Lost World and Timeline both had intriguing plots, but all the passages spent on technical details simply killed my enjoyment; I abandoned both books before I got halfway through either and haven’t picked up a Crichton novel since.