Book Review: The Neanderthal's Aunt

Hmmm! Let's create Jurassic Park (yes, I know it's off by 60M years, but the drift is there) in the womb of a monkey to give a rich, self-absorbed, and annoying woman a baby after her husband dies and then drag her sister, THE NEANDERTHAL'S AUNT, through this hellacious and suspect process. Could work. I love the braided plot line where odd little tidbits in life coalesce into hair-brained logic at the end of the story. Though it starts off a bit slow, good moments of sheer lunacy thrive in the story. Some love interest aspects between two of the main characters didn't click with me. What does he really see in the aunt? How can she care for a playboy? The aunt is not quite Bridget Jones--though close, the science is a bit wacky or perhaps it's the lack of medical team support for the crazy science experiment that pulled me out of the story a few times, and the very ending seems emotionally right but the how and where were kind of hard to swallow.

Still it is a very good read for the beach or on the plane. You may even find yourself laughing out loud on a few occasions. With the right players, this might actually make a better movie than book. Zany romance female leads Renee Zellweger and Sandra Bullock are pushing the age envelope, but I think a fattened-up Alyson Hannigan could pull this off. This is a very strong 4-star book.