Ramona AusubelRecensioni

A scientist and her two very charming adolescent daughters begin a journey in Siberia in the hopes of creating a prehistoric mammoth which will save the planet. It ends in Italy with a baby mammoth walking into the woods. Complicated relationships. The worst part of the book was the fact that so much of the science had changed but women roles remained the same.

I'm not going to lie. I think this has been the oddest book I have ever read. That being said, I still enjoyed some of the stories in it and the author definitely got me feeling some things for the characters in her stories. I would recommend this book to adults only. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Dystopia, Romania

It was OK.

A mixed bag of a book. This book is about but is not enough about mammoths, cutting edge science, feminism, or women in science. Instead, this book centers on extinctions, broadly defined: megafauna extinction, prehistoric humanoid extinction, personal extinction, familial extinction, and possibly the biggest one of all, the very real possibility of global extinction through climate change. It's a weighty theme and the author is at their best at moments when the characters realize that despite their hopes and wishes, extinction is permanent. There's no coming back from it, which generates the grief that permeates the novel.

Greater character development was needed. We never have a sense of what's really driving the characters apart from grief. Grief is powerful, but it's not enough to explain many of their choices. There's a lack of depth to relationship between the father and daughters, as if they never really knew each other, so it's hard to understand why they're so overwhelmed with grief. We also don't have any other real information about Jane other than that she's a grieving widow and having a hard time parenting teenagers as a single mother. There's also not quite enough action or unexpected developments to sustain the readers' interest and certain plot points that could have given the novel a push are never explored. (Why does Jane never refer to The Professor by name? Are the British couple really the villains? They never really feel that sinister, just odd.) At one point, literally all of the main characters are just hanging out on an Italian estate doing nothing waiting for something to happen but it's never quite clear what they're waiting for. It would not have been hard to add some suspense and action to this novel, which I regret to say ended about the way I expected. I love the idea and exploring the theme of extinction, but this wasn't the book I was hoping for.

What I loved about this one was that every story was a new adventure and Ausubel managed to surprise me at every turn. Some of the stories were a bit on the confusing side, and I was left wondering what I'd just read and what the point of it was - but for the most part, I was able to just let myself get lost and enjoy the collection.

I'd recommend giving this a read, if contemporary fiction that leans toward the magical is your thing.

What I loved about this one was that every story was a new adventure and Ausubel managed to surprise me at every turn. Some of the stories were a bit on the confusing side, and I was left wondering what I'd just read and what the point of it was - but for the most part, I was able to just let myself get lost and enjoy the collection.

I'd recommend giving this a read, if contemporary fiction that leans toward the magical is your thing.

A story about a single mother with her two teenage daughters as they struggle against the sexism in the scientific community, and bring a wooly mammoth baby into existence. This is easy to get through and enjoyable, but I need the characters to have more distinct voices. I'd be caught in a page of dialog and have to check who said what between the mother and daughters multiple times. This is also strange in that while something very earth-shaking happens, bringing back an extinct species! No one know about it? and so nothing actually happens in the end. The focus is much more on the relationships between the mother and daughters and their grief over losing their husband/father.

Eve and Vera, the teenage protagonists of Ramona Ausubel’s The Last Animal like to tell each other fantastical stories as a way to ground themselves in the crazy life they live traveling around the world at the whim of their scientist parents. When their father dies, their mother, Jane, forced to continue their hectic existence in pursuit of finishing her Ph.D., takes them to Siberia for the summer. When they stumble upon a baby woolly mammoth, they have no idea how it will change all of their lives. The Last Animal defies genre-fication as it is a feminist, environmental, coming-of-age story about parenthood, grief, and finding yourself at 15 and 40. I highly recommend this book to readers of Lydia Millet, Emma Straub, and others looking for something different about women and family.

It took me a while to get into this book – partly because it wasn’t what I expected, partly because I feared that a book set in World War II would be emotionally harrowing. It was, it wasn’t, it didn’t matter after a while because the superb language swept me up and away into the story. Not your average tale-telling, but utterly riveting and rich in emotional depth.

Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty is a strange, quiet tale full of juicy insight and extravagantly gorgeous arrangements of words. Superb.

A lyrical, haunting story. A small village of Jews tried to recreate their world and start over. The biblical symbolism and references aboynd, especially in the beginning. Rain and floods and stars are significant motifs. Of course they are unable to keep the "old world" away and it storms back in. Another significant motif is that of parenthood. What happens to Lena happens to her own son. Her husband is pirated away (Joseph?) She is essentially sold away (Hagar?) and starts over too. Yes, it is "another" WWII story, but original and based on truth. Stories are everything, as the book reiterates.
Worth reading.

This collection of stories takes you to other lands only to bring you home. Ausubel has a mesmerizing way with words. The grace & wit in the telling of these tales will get you hooked on a journey you never thought you would take.

This collection of stories takes you to other lands only to bring you home. Ausubel has a mesmerizing way with words. The grace & wit in the telling of these tales will get you hooked on a journey you never thought you would take.

If you like Karen Russell, this short story collection is right up your ally. I enjoyed most of the stories. Some of them were a little twisted, but good. I have yet to finish all the stories in this book yet, but I know it will call to me again when I can't sleep.

Travelling people, travelling bodies.

Ausubel's A Guide to Being Born was one of my favourite short story collections perhaps, um, ever and it spurred a love affair with short story collections for me. Ausubel has a way of writing about bodies and people that inspire dread. Weird, wonderful and a rumination on autonomy, I always loved reading her work.

So, I came into this one with high hopes.

The first story was so funny and so brilliant, I fell in love with it right away. The rest of the collection is not as weird as A Guide to Being Born. It's ... more domestic, quieter but never less threatening. If you can't decide if Ausubel is for you, I would start with this collection before going onto A Guide to Being Born.

I found this really readable and although it was different to A Guide to Being Born, I didn't enjoy it any less. If I had to choose, I'd say A Guide to Being Born is my favourite, but I still really liked it.

An absolutely fascinating collection of stories. I found that it started off really strong in the fantasy realm, and waned a bit in the middle, but all of the stories were interesting and some of them were were really beautiful.

(This review can also be found on my blog.)

cw: suicide, familial death, incest, pedophilia

Where she had once been a precise oil painting, now she was a watercolor.

I've been looking forward to this for a while. I've been really into short story collections, particularly """weird""" ones, for a while now and had Awayland on my TBR for a couple months prior to its release. I was actually stoked when I opened up my library copy and realized that Ramona had also written A Guide to Being Born, which has been on my TBR for ages and just looks gorgeous and great.

She grew up with the feeling that children must simply appear, unbidden. Who would want to make any more of them? It was as if they hatched in some dirty, neglected corner like so many baby cockroaches and the grown-ups had had no choice but to try to raise them.

This particular collection was sorted into four sections, each with its highs and lows. I had a couple I vibed with particularly strongly and others that didn't really stand out to me. I'll list the sections, stories, and individual ratings below:

I remember being sixteen and feeling so in love with my friends that it seemed like they would be enough to sustain me for the rest of time.

A. Bay of Hungers
You Can Find Love Now ⭐⭐⭐
Fresh Water from the Sea ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
Template for a Proclamation to Save the Species ⭐⭐⭐⭐

B. The Cape of Persistent Hope
Mother Land ⭐⭐⭐
Departure Lounge ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Remedy ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

C. The Lonesome Flats
Club Zeus ⭐⭐⭐
High Desert ⭐⭐⭐
Heaven ⭐⭐

D. The Dream Isles
The Animal Mummies Wish to Thank the Following ⭐⭐
Do Not Save the Ferocious, Save the Tender ⭐⭐

She was too tired now, too worn through to love anyone back.

My average rating was 3.32 stars, which I rounded down to 3. As you can see I had a few favorites toward the beginning but the second half fell a bit flat for me. I still recommend this book, particularly to lovers of literary fiction, and I'm looking forward to picking up more of Ramona's work!

This book leaves me in a quandary. I understand and accept the decision of the small village of Jewish people who try to avoid being part of the atrocities of World War II by starting a "new and hidden world". They are already somewhat hidden due to the fact that they live on a peninsula. I also see how that decision will not work as planned. But some of the other situations that occur are hard to comprehend. At the same time these unusual happenings really made me ponder life situations. If that was the intention of the author, she did succeed. All in all, this is an interesting, if not unusual read.

Interesting story/fable. beautifully written, while also frustrating and at times infuriating. The first half struck me as almost whimsical, lyrical,dream-like, the second half was more realistic and disturbing. 5/6 of the way thru I was very angry at the author and her characters, but by the end I felt she won me back by bringing the story to a more optimistic but not fairy-tale conclusion.

I love the way this author writes, her turns of phrase, and how she inserted social and political issues into these stories, and did so seamlessly. These stories are clever, imaginative, and all surprising. Divided into four sections, each section stressing an emotion, and from the title it would be correct to assume each of these stories deal with characters who want to go away. Some on a trip, some from their lives, some from expectations and sameness, and in one story, Fresh water from the sea, a daughter returns to the sight of her mother physically vanishing day by day, fading a little more each time.

Their are insightful comments, criticism which the author does not shy away from making. Metaphors abound and none seem out of place. The less said about these stories the better I think so that each reader will have their own surprise when they start reading. This is the kind of book, the type of stories that I believe can be read again and again, and each time the reader will think, discover or feel something new, different.

Just one little warning, if you plan to register with a dating service, be aware that you may find yourself dating a cyclops.

I admired this more than I enjoyed it -- the writing is very fine but I was so worried about the kids I could hardly stand to read it. Some interesting things to say about a marriage in crisis but I think it might have worked better as a short story.

A nice collection of short stories from a talented writer. All in all, I came away with a feeling of ennui and some nice quotes.

With the events of WWII closing in around them, a Jewish village in Romania decides to cut themselves off from the rest of the world and create a brand new world for themselves. Ignoring the damage this could do to their children in the future, of course.

The book annoyed me, though I appreciated the amazing storytelling and writing style. However, the narrator, Lena, was so incredibly PASSIVE and lackluster that it was really hard to have sympathy for her. And if any character deserves sympathy, it would have been she. She just let things happen to her, without fighting for control. It was irritating.

I had all around mixed feelings about this book-great story, annoying characters. And the mixture of 1st and 3rd person narrative was...well, intriguing. I think it was more effective as I was listening to the book as opposed to reading it. Though I'm not quite sure how Lena was able to write the stories of people she never saw again...

Thanks to Goodreads and the publisher for a free copy of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty!

This book follows a wealthy, old money family who finds that their fortune has run out. Faced with the prospect of actually working to maintain their standard of living, the parents fall apart, have affairs, and take off, leaving their small children to fend for themselves.

So, this is a tricky book to rate. Their nine-year-old daughter Cricket's chapters -- five stars right there, no question. I could have read an entire book about Cricket, her school, and her younger siblings, and I would have loved every page of it.

But the chapters about the parents? Oh, wow, I spent the better part of the novel wanting to reach through the words and shake them. You mean you might have to get a job in a high-up position with a steel company, just to make a living? The horror. They felt realistic and three-dimensional... but just in a way that made me want to roll my eyes.

That's not to say that those sections weren't good. The writing is gorgeous -- I kept on rereading sections to try and absorb the beauty of the sentences.

I just... didn't like the parents, that's all, and it affected my opinion of the rest of the book. I'll definitely be picking up more of Ramona Ausubel's books, though!