The Last Animal, Ramona Ausubel

I spied this on the shelf at 57th Street Books and it called to me (this is the joy of browsing a well-curated bookstore!). It opens with two teenage girls who are accompanying their grad student scientist mother on a dig and accidentally discover a perfectly preserved woolly mammoth. And it’s great — outwardly a kind of picaresque, but really, a novel that plumbs the complex emotional landscapes of the characters, especially as they intersect with (gendered) social norms and expectations. In particular, and what I especially appreciated, was how it juxtaposed the mother’s frustration with the sexism holding her back from a distinguished career in science, with her daughters’ frustration at their mother’s intense focus on her career, and neglect of them. It reads like a breezy beach book, especially given its whimsical, outrageous plot, but it’s so smart, and really moving.