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effervescentsoul's review against another edition
1.0
Meh. This book left me wondering what was so interesting about the series to my much younger self. I found it somewhat tedious & rather predictable, but I do like the characters and stuck with it to the end to see how their stories played out.
mastersal's review against another edition
3.0
While I loved the series l, by this book Ayla has become basically Superwoman. I still enjoyed this book but it was getting to much. The series really needs to end now.
crystal_dark's review against another edition
5.0
This book is the 5th book in the Earth's Children Series and takes place after Ayla and Jondalar finally reach his home the 9th cave. I really enjoyed this book and getting to meet all of Jondalar's family as well other members of the Zelandonii. As always with the books in this series there is a bit too much detail about the area and research about the period but there is more story and focus on the people as well so it is not too much skipping in this book.
linda_1410's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
2.5
Eight years I waited for this book. Twelve years it took for Ms. Auel to write it since book 4. Everything she set up about Ayla meeting Jondolar's people was forgotten, and she finally turned Ayla into a full blown Mary Sue for good. She always had Mary Sue vibes, but she still had at least some struggles. But now she's just good at everything and only the mean, worthless people hated her. Very disappointing. I've thankfully repressed the horrible name she gave their kid.
Terrible early reviews for the final book means I never read it and probably never will since I'd lost interest by the time it came out and the one thing I wanted to happen didn't, so I saw little point in reading it.
Terrible early reviews for the final book means I never read it and probably never will since I'd lost interest by the time it came out and the one thing I wanted to happen didn't, so I saw little point in reading it.
branomir's review against another edition
4.0
Juij, eerste boek van het jaar uit...beetje vals gespeeld gezien ik dit begin vorig jaar beginnen lezen ben maar laat ons dat negeren. Het is en blijft een heel leuk boek met een boeiende kijk op het prehistorische leven maar er zitten toch net iets teveel dode momenten bij. Te vaak hele ritsen beschrijvingen over technieken of werktuigen of het landschap en na een tijdje gaan die toch wat tegensteken. Ieder nieuw boek doet ze dit vaker en je merkt dat de boeken inderdaad steeds dikker worden, helaas niet met verhaal. Leuk, maar enkel voor de echte fans van deze reeks denk ik. Ik lees dit voor de derde keer en nu ik ouder ben en, ahum, wijzer, merk ik dat het spirituele aspect me ook iets meer verveelt dan vroeger. Jammer, het is geen slecht idee deze moeder godsdienst, maar ze is er toch net iets teveel mee bezig naar mijn smaak. Het had wat subtieler gemogen.
lady_bibliophilia's review against another edition
2.0
Just too much repetition, the book took so long even though I skipped massive descriptions and the many "pleasure" scenes. I want to see characters developing and become friends with some of them but it's almost impossible, we hardly know people of the 9th cave.
My favorite character is Zelandoni. She's a woman you must admire.
My favorite character is Zelandoni. She's a woman you must admire.
berenikeasteria's review against another edition
1.0
After finishing the doorstop "Plains of Passage" I was not looking forwards to reading this latest book in the saga (apparently there is one more to come but not yet published). Part of me was sort of hoping that it would be better than "Plains of Passage" and "The Mammoth Hunters", because finally Ayla and Jondalar have reached the place that was their goal since three books ago, and finally we might get a somewhat meatier plot. Unfortunately, it was trouble from the moment I read the Acknowledgements. If Auel has an understanding of human nature and motivation, I will eat my hat - all the character dialogue in this book is banal and inane, and so are the characters, little more than flat stereotypes with no depth or complexity to their personalities whatsoever. Auel has no idea of human motivations, and the Ayla-Jondalar relationship is just a prime example of this, since their relationship is essentially a forcibly extended fling with no reasons given for their association beyond their ridiculous sexual compatibility.
The tone of this book felt instantly very different to the previous books after just the first 100 pages. Even early on there are problems. The repetition, oh dear god the repetition. Every time Ayla meets a new person, there is a five minute long introduction which fills up about a page and includes the recitation of every single obscure connection a person has. Auel could just write "and then formal introductions were exchanged", but the reason why she doesn't is quite simple - because then she wouldn't be able to use these endless and pointless introductions as page filler. Ayla's full recital of connections is particularly pompous. Every character has the same reaction to her, verbatim. Multiple explanations of how Ayla came to tame the horses, tame the wolf and introducing people to the wolf by hand-sniffing, multiple demonstrations of how firestones work, of how Ayla's memory skills came to be so good due to her living with Neanderthals, of how Ayla thinks she is ugly and Neanderthals are good looking (which begs the question why she doesn't ditch Jondalar for Brukeval or Echozar but hey, this is Jean Auel we're talking about, this doesn't have to make sense), multiple mentions of how Creb's favourite dish is stuffed ptarmigan and how Ayla would stuff the dish with eggs if it were the season for eggs which it unfortunately isn't. Multiple repetition of a silly poem called the Earth Mother's Song. This thing is seven pages long and is repeated about five times throughout the book (another handy page filler), sometimes broken up by the thoughts of Ayla about a particular verse, just to spell out to the readers in case we're too thick to get the blindingly obvious parallels Auel is trying to draw between Ayla and the earth mother goddess. Without all this ridiculous repetition, this book would be at least a third shorter in my estimation, 550 pages of dull drudgery instead of 800 pages of appalling agony.
Speaking of boring repetition, we come back to the issue of the terrible pulp-like, purple prose filled sex scenes that are the obligatory staple of every Auel book. It's as laughable and ridiculous as ever, and repetition seems to be the theme here. After every single encounter it is explained to us in great detail how Ayla was taught to wash herself after sex by her adoptive Neanderthal mother, Iza. Okay, WE GET IT! Enough already! Why is this repeated so often? Are we supposed to assume that all the other women don't wash and therefore are dirty in comparison to gleaming clean Ayla? Unfortunately no one else ever gets a look in at their own sex scenes, so we're just subjected to Ayla and Jondalar's BORING sessions.
This book had the great potential to have a lot of strife, confrontation and conflict, which would create an actual plot. You have the fact that Ayla has to win the approval of Jondalar's mother, who as a former leader we would expect to be a very strong and experienced woman, as well as Jondalar's elder half-brother Joharran who as leader of the tribe would have the final say about Ayla being adopted into the Zelandonii. Then you have the fact that inevitably at some point, Ayla's past, being raised by Neanderthals and giving birth to a half-Neanderthal, half-Cro Magnon son, would have to come out. This had the potential to become a big sticking point, as Jondalar has been telling Ayla ever since they met about how strongly his people feel about the Neanderthals as sub-human. Then you have the potential for confrontation between Ayla and the two other notable ladies in Jondalar's past, Marona, his jilted fiancée, and Zolena, now the shaman of the tribe, the only woman he has ever loved apart from Ayla. And how are all these potential conflicts handled? Jondalar's family including his mother and brother accept Ayla instantly with no fuss, and whilst the revelation of her origins is surprising, after Ayla demonstrates Clan language once and Willamar suggests maybe the Neanderthals are intelligent after all, that quickly becomes a non-issue. Zelandoni very quickly accepts Ayla too, and far from being wiser than Ayla, wants to learn all of Ayla's technologies. Marona does not accept Ayla, but after one very pathetic attempt to humiliate Ayla, which backfires, she is banished from the next several hundred pages of the book.
The appalling treatment of Ayla completely dispells any possible tension, and indeed any of her likability. The most annoying feature of Ayla's favouritist treatment is that every other character loves her, and any character that does not quickly gets their come uppance, consigned by Auel's writing to death, a miserable fate, or at least total humiliation and the rest of the tribe turning on them. This is also why Ayla's confrontations with Zolena and Marona are also resolved in such an unsatisfactory way. No one must be allowed to rival perfect Ayla, so, guess what, Jondalar finds when he arrives that in his absence Zolena has become extremely fat, so she cannot possibly be any kind of challenger to Ayla for Jondalar's affection. Marona on the other hand is given an extremely ugly personality, and just as Zolena is made fat and Joplaya locked into a miserable union, Auel condemns Marona to infertility. Yep, whilst Ayla proves her glorious fertility by giving birth to Jondalar's child, every other possible rival for his affections is made either miserable, fat, or barren.
And what exactly forms the climax of this wreck of a book? The short answer is that there is no climax. The birth of Ayla and Jondalar's long-awaited baby is supposed to be the big climax of the book, but it only takes up a handful of pages, and Ayla drops the baby easily and promptly names it the most dull and uninventive name possible, without ceremony. Pretty much nothing happens in terms of plot whatsoever. There are no unexpected events or twists in the plot, and nothing much happens at all for the entire book. I don't know what else to say, but please don't spend your money on this book. Get it from the library if you simply must. 0 stars out of 5.
ida_astrom's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0