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2.92 AVERAGE
2.92 AVERAGE
So much repetitiveness in so many ways. The repeating storyline was disappointing and the inconsistencies drove me to distraction. But, the ending was worth it. I also still really enjoy the over arching themes of religion, gender roles, ecology and survival.
I started this series in 5th grade and am happy, at 40, to finally finish it. This last book certainly didn't tie up lose ends, but it was still a nice adventure with the historical and anthropological histories that have always made Auel's work so fascinating to me. It's like smart-chick lit.
What a bummer. Each book just got more and more repetitive and boring - this was a huge waste of time.
I read the other books in this series many years ago. I couldn't really remember the specifics of the happenings to date, but it wasn't hard to just jump back in to the characters. As some other reviews have mentioned, the book did ramble on descriptions of paintings and herb gatherings and such. I did tend to skim the story. It was the first two books of the series that were the best (that I've bothered to read more than once). I do find some of the herb text interesting (also, having read Outlander, I found myself trying to see if the two women having to use natural remidies for healing used anything similar). All in all, just ok ...
I reread this book series every year, and every year I pick up more and more nuances and things to enjoy. Highly recommended.
I'm definitely rounding up the stars on this one. There were a couple of things that bothered me about this book but overall I did like it. One of the things that bothered me was the repetition. I think if some of the introductions to people and repetitions of the Song of the Earth Mother were left out, the book could have been half the size. Also you didn't have to worry about not remembering things from previous books because the important things were retold (and retold). I didn't like that after waiting so long and reading so many pages (all 6 books in the series) that it kind of ended with a fizzle that left you wondering "that's it?!". There also didn't seem to be any really new storylines. I did enjoy some of the descriptions of the cave paintings and would like to see pictures of them because I was having a hard time picturing some of them. I also liked that some characters from previous books were brought back. Overall, I would say it was definitely time for the series to end but I'm sad that it ended with a fizzle instead of a bang.
I still remember that day...I was 9 years old and had just walked myself into the library and gotten myself my first library card. Books were the only thing in the world that mattered to me and it was getting expensive to buy them all new in the drugstore of the small town we lived in. I remember thinking to myself that if I could just read THICKER books that I could stay with a story for longer. But YA fiction was rarely over 200 pages and I could read that in an hour or so (ahhh - to have that kind of reading time nowadays - sigh!). So, with a little excitement, I stepped around the shelves and entered the adult section. Rows upon rows of 500+ page books, just waiting fo rme to devour them.
I realized I was too young to understand much of what was in the books with the women in bodices and the men with the flowing locks. I just had to find something that looked like it would be a good story for me to immerse myself in. It was then that I found Jean M. Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear. In hindsight, not the book for a nine year old, but I thought it looked like a good story about a little cave girl orphan. I was right. I devoured it as quickly as I could and then headed back to the library for the next one, Valley of the Horses...and then the next one, The Mammoth Hunters. I realized parts of the books were smutty, but my desire for a good story kept me turning the pages and glossing over the racy details. Years later, my mother read Clan of the Cave Bear and commented to me that had she known what the books were like, I NEVER would have been allowed to read them.
It was after finishing the third book that I had to wait a very long time for the fourth, which came out when I was in my early teens. Then the fifth was when I was in my mid-twenties. Finally, this one, the sixth and final in the series, was released last month. Somehow I had missed the boat on knowing in advance and was happily surprised when I went to buy vacation reads and it was right there on the home page!!!
It took me a bit to actually get to it and I would like to say it was worth the wait, but it really wasn't. For the finally book in the series, it was a dry and tedious read. Much of it completley lacked the colour of Auel's other books. I even found myself questioning often if she had even written them or if the duty had been passed along to a much less talented lackey. It wasn't until Part Three that I could pick out Auel's narrative voice. So disappointing.
The premise of the book is that Ayla is now deep in training to become a Zelandoni (healer/wise woman of the tribe). Her "master" is the most important of these and wants her to tour all of the sacred places in their territory. This means that they must travel from cave to cave to experience them and see their paintings. Along the way, there are many opportunities for conflicts and adventures - very few of which materialize and then only those that can be wrapped up within the scope of this book. Many loose strings are left as characters suddenly "walk off" (and those are avenues I think would have been worth exploring to keep it from being the sterile and boring read it was)
The thing that annoyed me most about the book was how repetitive the writing was. A character would have two pages of thoughts about a subject and then there would be two pages of verbalizing the thoughts to another character and then another two pages of the otehr character marvelling about how in sync their thoughts were with those of the first character. Same goes for all of the formal introductions. If I had to endure one more introduction where everyone's full titles and connections were given, I was going to scream! The storyline was relatively flat...the conflicts and human interaction of the past books was gone. Potential crises were always built up and then quietly averted. The conflicts just weren't there and conflicts are what makes a STORY interesting. She also went deep into the minutae of daily tasks...spelling out exactly how a tallow lanp is fueled and lit EACH TIME one was used!
I'm sure Auel, who is famous for the amount of research that goes into her books, spent a great deal of time touring ancient caves and researching the heck out of them. She just didn't spend a great deal of time thinking out how to write about caves while giving a reader more to sink their teeth into. For a book that was 10 years in the making, I definitely had higher hopes. Even if I had've read some of the reviews before buying the book, I probably still would have read it to get some closure on a series I have been following for most of my life. I do think I need to re-read the first 5 books, though, to cleanse myself of this one and remind me of the brilliance of the series.
My verdict - not worth reading unless you have been following the series and want closure. It was disappointing at best, but now it is done. Any book that I finish with the exclaimations "Blech! Really?!?! That's how you're going to end the frickin' series?!?!" is probably not a good series ender. My advice? Read at your own risk...you were warned.
I realized I was too young to understand much of what was in the books with the women in bodices and the men with the flowing locks. I just had to find something that looked like it would be a good story for me to immerse myself in. It was then that I found Jean M. Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear. In hindsight, not the book for a nine year old, but I thought it looked like a good story about a little cave girl orphan. I was right. I devoured it as quickly as I could and then headed back to the library for the next one, Valley of the Horses...and then the next one, The Mammoth Hunters. I realized parts of the books were smutty, but my desire for a good story kept me turning the pages and glossing over the racy details. Years later, my mother read Clan of the Cave Bear and commented to me that had she known what the books were like, I NEVER would have been allowed to read them.
It was after finishing the third book that I had to wait a very long time for the fourth, which came out when I was in my early teens. Then the fifth was when I was in my mid-twenties. Finally, this one, the sixth and final in the series, was released last month. Somehow I had missed the boat on knowing in advance and was happily surprised when I went to buy vacation reads and it was right there on the home page!!!
It took me a bit to actually get to it and I would like to say it was worth the wait, but it really wasn't. For the finally book in the series, it was a dry and tedious read. Much of it completley lacked the colour of Auel's other books. I even found myself questioning often if she had even written them or if the duty had been passed along to a much less talented lackey. It wasn't until Part Three that I could pick out Auel's narrative voice. So disappointing.
The premise of the book is that Ayla is now deep in training to become a Zelandoni (healer/wise woman of the tribe). Her "master" is the most important of these and wants her to tour all of the sacred places in their territory. This means that they must travel from cave to cave to experience them and see their paintings. Along the way, there are many opportunities for conflicts and adventures - very few of which materialize and then only those that can be wrapped up within the scope of this book. Many loose strings are left as characters suddenly "walk off" (and those are avenues I think would have been worth exploring to keep it from being the sterile and boring read it was)
The thing that annoyed me most about the book was how repetitive the writing was. A character would have two pages of thoughts about a subject and then there would be two pages of verbalizing the thoughts to another character and then another two pages of the otehr character marvelling about how in sync their thoughts were with those of the first character. Same goes for all of the formal introductions. If I had to endure one more introduction where everyone's full titles and connections were given, I was going to scream! The storyline was relatively flat...the conflicts and human interaction of the past books was gone. Potential crises were always built up and then quietly averted. The conflicts just weren't there and conflicts are what makes a STORY interesting. She also went deep into the minutae of daily tasks...spelling out exactly how a tallow lanp is fueled and lit EACH TIME one was used!
I'm sure Auel, who is famous for the amount of research that goes into her books, spent a great deal of time touring ancient caves and researching the heck out of them. She just didn't spend a great deal of time thinking out how to write about caves while giving a reader more to sink their teeth into. For a book that was 10 years in the making, I definitely had higher hopes. Even if I had've read some of the reviews before buying the book, I probably still would have read it to get some closure on a series I have been following for most of my life. I do think I need to re-read the first 5 books, though, to cleanse myself of this one and remind me of the brilliance of the series.
My verdict - not worth reading unless you have been following the series and want closure. It was disappointing at best, but now it is done. Any book that I finish with the exclaimations "Blech! Really?!?! That's how you're going to end the frickin' series?!?!" is probably not a good series ender. My advice? Read at your own risk...you were warned.
Such a let down. An exercise in stuffing pages with repetitive “songs” and endless description of every cave she has visited just to meet the contractually obligated word count.
I loved the first few of these when I was about 13 (at which point I was probably a bit too young to be reading them considering the frequent (if ridiculous and repetitive) sex scenes). They went gradually downhill as the series progressed as I got tired of being told how impossibly gifted, charismatic,tall, blonde, beautiful, pioneering, deeply in love and universally worshipped one couple could be. However I still wanted to know how it ended. I only made it through 200 pages out of over 700 and I very, very rarely give up on books mid-way through. Having just read the other reviews on here I am glad I ended it all when I did. I think this may be the worst book I have ever attempted to read. I'm not sure if the prose style was always this wooden and simplistic and I was just less discerning as a 13-year-old, but it truly is painful. The extensive research could have been used to write a very informative non-fiction book about prehistoric life and cave art - but The Land of Painted Caves is not this book, nor is it a novel with a story. I am not exaggerating when I say that no plot had occurred by the point at which I gave up.
I have never felt compelled to write a review on Goodreads before but my eyes have just been opened to how terrible published, best-selling fiction can be and I needed to share this revelation. If you want a more thorough explanation of why it is the most disappointing conclusion to a series which has ever occurred read the other reviews. Under absolutely no circumstances attempt to read it yourself to find out.
I have never felt compelled to write a review on Goodreads before but my eyes have just been opened to how terrible published, best-selling fiction can be and I needed to share this revelation. If you want a more thorough explanation of why it is the most disappointing conclusion to a series which has ever occurred read the other reviews. Under absolutely no circumstances attempt to read it yourself to find out.
Mooi. Ik denk niet dat ik Ayla en Jondalar snel zal vergeten. Het lijkt me waarschijnlijker
dat ik de serie boeken van de Aardkinderen nog eens ga lezen in de toekomst. En dan
met name de eerste drie delen.
Eigenlijk hoop ik dat er nog een deel bij komt. Ik zou graag willen weten hoe het leven
van Ayla's zoon Dure verder is verlopen nadat Ayla gedwongen is vertrokken bij de Stam.
De boeken klinken zo logisch dat het mij niet heel veel zou verbazen als de wereld ooit
echt zo is geweest.
We zouden nu ook wel weer wat meer respect mogen hebben voor de natuur en alles
wat we daarvan krijgen.
dat ik de serie boeken van de Aardkinderen nog eens ga lezen in de toekomst. En dan
met name de eerste drie delen.
Eigenlijk hoop ik dat er nog een deel bij komt. Ik zou graag willen weten hoe het leven
van Ayla's zoon Dure verder is verlopen nadat Ayla gedwongen is vertrokken bij de Stam.
De boeken klinken zo logisch dat het mij niet heel veel zou verbazen als de wereld ooit
echt zo is geweest.
We zouden nu ook wel weer wat meer respect mogen hebben voor de natuur en alles
wat we daarvan krijgen.