Book Review: The Last Hunter by Davide Morosinotto

 Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads
L'ultimo cacciatore.

This one looked cool, so I picked it up. Spoilers ahead.

The prehistoric boy Roqi and five of his friends are out alone when disaster strikes: their entire tribe is wiped out. Now alone, the children have to learn to survive. But fate is not with them, as one by one they start to lose more members. They eventually join another tribe, however more and more people are starting to think that there rests a curse upon Roqi that everyone around him should die. Roqi is determined to prove them wrong, however this might in turn cause even more dismay than if he were to just accept it.

This was definitely an interesting book. It takes place 10 000 years ago in the Ice Age times, which is one of my favorite settings. The lore of this world was well-thought out and, while not super deep, interesting, and the characters, while varying in likability, all felt rounded and realistic. You also just feel so bad for Roqi and his peers as they are just constantly swept into tragedy after tragedy.

Roqi himself is far from a perfect main character: He often refuses to accept things as they are or to listen to his peers, but at the same time he's not a bad person. He's just a kid very, very determined to prove himself. Which makes total sense. Prior to the death of the rest of his tribe, he was the only one of the children (minus the youngest) to not be given the title of adult yet due to him not passing a test. After the tribe is killed, he cannot pass the test officially because it has to be confirmed by their shaman. So throughout the entire book he's both fighting to prove himself and to prove that there rests no curse upon him. And yes, he gets cocky and refuses to listen, but when you take into account he's a kid who is put down quite a lot and just lost his entire family, yeah, you can totally see where he's coming from.

Also, the title is a bit of a spoiler, but, boy, does this book have a downer ending. After accidentally causing yet more deaths in the tribe that was about to adopt him and his friends, Roqi is banished and forced to survive on his own now. Everyone definitely thinks at this point that he's cursed.

He manages to survive semi-well on his own and is determined to bring down a mammoth by himself, but he does feel terribly lonely, no more friends or tribe to keep him company. Eventually it turns out that Hona, the youngest of their old friend group and Roqi's biggest fan, ran away from her adopted tribe just to be with him. Seems like a happy ending, but nope, even that goes awry as Hona is killed in a pretty brutal way, which once again is in a way because of Roqi. The story ends with Roqi now all alone and accepting his fate as a loner, having only Hona's pet ground sloth to keep him company from now on. So a very sad ending as foreshadowed by the title. 

So yeah, this is a good read if you're in for some action revolving around prehistoric humans, however it's also a very depressing story full of death with a sombre ending. I get that this isn't for everyone, especially if you're not in the mood for something sad or dark, but I do think that this is a very well-written story overall.

Rating: 4/5