This book was bleak, but I think was intended to be. The kind of book that makes you take a real hard look at yourself and the way you act, and your ideals/the way you interact with the world. The Neolithic people's story was so sad and hard-hitting. Not an easy book to read, but I would recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and The Calliope Group for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I honestly don't know what to say about this one ; I didn't hate it but I didn't love it either.

The premise, a man who is arrested for murder and is discovered to be a Neanderthal did interest me but I found the execution lacking.

I kept waiting for something to happen but not much did. There were quite a few sex scenes that I don't think needed to be there though I understood at the end why they were there.

There was clearly an attempt at some reflection on the human condition and immigration but nothing was really explored to the fullest so I felt quite disappointed overall.

I did however like the characters and the writing quite a bit but that wasn't enough to make the book for me.

A sophisticated, midnight-dark, funny, chilling, terrifyingly Orwellian must-read. America is no longer a democracy, it has succumbed to fundamentalist scaremongering and passed the Patriot Amendments which gave the government sweeping powers similar to what Bashir al Assad holds. Raleigh, a Manhattan lawyer, is called to defend a weird little guy named Blingbling from charges of murder. Blingbling, whose speech is unintelligible, is erudite and clear-thinking when holding a pen. ,Both characters, who each tell the story from their points of view, are beautifully drawn. Blinbling's calm acceptance of his people's history and his clear-eyed analysis of his present predicament is built layer by layer to the finale (do not succumb to the terrible practice of reading the last page!). Raleigh is an unlikely but ultimately noble hero. This ought to be a best-seller.