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The Last Animal

A Novel

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The Last Animal

Written by: Ramona Ausubel
Narrated by: Natasha Soudek
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About this listen

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“Whip-smart and compulsively readable. . . both a wildly entertaining adventure story and a meditation on what it means to love your children—fiercely and imperfectly.”—Oprah Daily

“Springs alive to explore questions that stump scientists and families, problems of the head and the heart.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“A full-hearted portrait of sisterhood, family and the ways we process grief. Charming, wry, and original.”—People

TWO SISTERS, ONE MOM, AND ONE WOOLLY SECRET.

Teenage sisters Eve and Vera never imagined their summer vacation would be spent in the Arctic, tagging along on their mother’s scientific expedition. But there’s a lot about their lives lately that hasn’t been going as planned, and truth be told, their single mother might not be so happy either.

Now in Siberia with a bunch of serious biologists, Eve and Vera are just bored enough to cause trouble. Fooling around in the permafrost, they accidentally discover a perfectly preserved, four-thousand-year-old baby mammoth, and things finally start to get interesting. The discovery sets off a surprising chain of events, leading mother and daughters to go rogue, pinging from the slopes of Siberia to the shores of Iceland to an exotic animal farm in Italy, and resulting in the birth of a creature that could change the world—or at least this family.

The Last Animal takes listeners on a wild, entertaining, and refreshingly different kind of journey, one that explores the possibilities and perils of the human imagination on a changing planet, what it’s like to be a woman in a field dominated by men, and how a wondrous discovery can best be enjoyed with family. Even teenagers.

©2023 Ramona Ausubel (P)2023 Penguin Audio
Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Witty Polar Region
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What the critics say

“I know it's hard to imagine, but The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel, is like a sweeter, more poignant version of ‘Jurassic Park.’ This shaggy elephant story is as much about surviving family grief as it is about living in a world doomed by climate change. And yet, every family, after all, goes extinct eventually. The paradox that this novel confronts with such tender sympathy and humor is how to love the time we have left.”—The Washington Post

"Ausubel is a supernaturally gifted writer whose heart, soul, wit and intellect are evident in every wacky setting, character and plot line she weaves. Few authors can do what she does, seemingly effortlessly: spin saucy yet kind-spirited social satire while exploring a multitude of topical and archetypal subjects—all within a single work, all in sentences that sing… Forget everything you think you know about your reading tastes, sink into [Ausubel's] weird world and prepare to fall in love with a 4,000-year-old baby mammoth.”—LA Times

"Soars where so many other books about family dynamics simply coast. . . Ausubel brings deep emotional truth to her work of dramatic fiction. . . Splicing wit and wisdom, The Last Animal is a bright-eyed meditation on what animates us, biologically as well as emotionally—but most of all, familially.”—NPR

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