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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Apr 2023, 288 pages
Paperback:
Mar 2024, 288 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Rebecca Foster
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"In the Age of Extinction, two tagalong daughters traveled to the edge of the world with their mother to search the frozen earth for the bones of woolly mammoths." That opening paragraph of The Last Animal establishes not just the premise of Ramona Ausubel's third novel, but also the environmental outlook, the characters' family dynamic and the quirky combination of cosmic and domestic concerns. A winsome sister duo is at the heart of this unusual and timely story; the book prioritizes the points of view of teenagers Eve and Vera, who are 15 and 12 when the book opens and 17 and 14 by the end. They've had to grow up into independence suddenly, and they bring quick-witted sarcasm to weighty subjects like climate breakdown and bereavement that might otherwise have become depressing.
One year before, the girls' evolutionary anthropologist father, Sal, died in a car accident. Their ...
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