A review by seawarrior
The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel

4.0

The Last Animal is a meditation on grief, environmental destruction, and mothers and daughters told primarily through the eyes of a lonely yet perceptive teenage girl. Sections of the book are rather sad, as Vera is still rocked with grief by her father dying and her mother and sister growing apart from her. I did not think the book was as adventurous or playful as I had expected from the publisher's description. Even once the miraculous wolly mammoth baby enters the book, grief rises over the family like a tidal wave. The family, both human and mammoth, are isolated by their unlawful shared existence, and it soon becomes evident that the mammoth will never survive to adulthood, as its human caretakers do not understand its needs or its place in the world. Regardless, I thought this was a well-written and gorgeously descriptive book that translates the ache of grief for impossible needs into resounding language. 
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