Goodreads Monday: The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron

Hello Readers! Sorry I’ve been a little quiet the last few days. With everything going on right now it’s been hard for me to find the time or energy to post. Most of my family is in another country and I can’t travel to be with them so it’s been a rough couple of weeks for me.

I’m also actually working more than I did before the lockdown. I already worked from home and my workload has increased recently so I’ve been working like mad. Not that I’m complaining! I appreciate how lucky I am to still have work to do.

However, I think we all need some distractions right about now so I’m going to start blogging regularly again, especially since I have several reviews coming your way. In the meantime, it’s Goodreads Monday!

Goodreads Monday is a weekly book tag that was started by Lauren’s Page Turners. Each week you choose a book at random from your Goodreads TBR and explain why you want to read it. Given that my TBR on Goodreads is completely out of control I should be able to participate in this tag until the end of time.

The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron

Released: 2017
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Pages: 288

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From Goodreads: 

Forty thousand years in the past, the last family of Neanderthals roams the earth. Girl, the oldest daughter, is coming of age and her family is determined to travel to the meeting place to find her a mate. But the unforgiving landscape takes its toll, and Girl is left alone to care for Runt, a foundling. As Girl and Runt face the coming winter, Girl realizes she has one chance to save her people, at great cost to herself.

In the present, archaeologist Rosamund Gale works well into her pregnancy, racing to excavate newly found Neanderthal artifacts before her baby arrives. Linked across the ages by the shared experience of birth and early motherhood, and inspired by the recent discovery that many modern humans have inherited DNA from Neanderthals, Girl’s story and Rosamund’s story examines the often taboo corners of women’s lives.

Why I want to read it:

I think right about now would be a good time to reflect on humanity’s long history and our place within it. Sometimes it’s easy to forget we’ve been around for tens of thousands of years. I mean, I still can’t come to grips with the fact that the 1990’s weren’t ten years ago.

Obviously we can’t truly know how early hominids thought, communicated, or acted but it’s still a fantastic thought experiment. When it’s my turn to go on into the afterlife (which better be decades from now), one of my first questions is going to be, “WHAT WERE ANCIENT PEOPLES ACTUALLY LIKE?!?!” Such is the curse of archaeologists. Some people would be happy to finally get answers about what comes next whereas all I would want to know about is what came before.

I’m trying to limit my online orders at the moment to free up deliveries for people who need essentials so I won’t be ordering a physical copy of the book despite that gorgeous cover. Instead, I’ve found it on Audible and when I get my next credit I’ll be sure to use it toward this book. That is, if I can get through all my library audiobooks first.

I tend to stagger my library audiobook requests so that they become available a couple weeks apart, but with all y’all at home you’re apparently reading and listening up a storm. All of my holds have become available in the last week. ALL. OF. THEM. 

It’s awesome you’re getting so much reading done, but could you slow down just a teeny bit? I’m marathon listening so much I think the speaker on my phone is about to blow.

Have you read The Last Neanderthal? Do you take part in Goodreads Monday? Let me know in the comments!

**P.S. I truly hope you’re all doing okay. If you ever need to vent or just need a sounding board, comment on here or drop me a line (my contact details are listed here). I know it sounds super cliche, but we’re all in this ordeal together.**