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2.92 AVERAGE
2.92 AVERAGE
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Wasn't as exciting as the previous books, but I did enjoy it very much.
emotional
informative
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read this book the day after it came out.
I had been waiting for what felt like my entire life for the book ending the series.
I now pretend this book doesn’t exist.
There if Fan Fiction that is better than this.
Other reviews have excoriated this book better than I can. I am only adding my review because for some reason Goodreads has this at a 3.5 stars, and that is an insult to 3.5 star books everywhere.
Less than a star.
I had been waiting for what felt like my entire life for the book ending the series.
I now pretend this book doesn’t exist.
There if Fan Fiction that is better than this.
Other reviews have excoriated this book better than I can. I am only adding my review because for some reason Goodreads has this at a 3.5 stars, and that is an insult to 3.5 star books everywhere.
Less than a star.
Oh I am so disappointed with this book. The first two parts were terribly slow and repetitive. It wasn't until part three that the story really took shape and moved along at a nice clip. Her editor should have cut the first two parts way down and fleshed out all the goings on at the end of the book. I waited years for this book to come out, and I was so close to putting it away, but had invested so much in these characters for so long that I had to find out what was going to happen to them. It could have been so much more, but I'm glad to have read it and finished the story. It just seemed like Ms. Auel was bored of her characters and wanted nothing to do with them. But it's over now and on to better stories...
Badly in need of a ruthless editor. There were so many spelling errors in the last 200 pages or so.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Re-reading affirms just how much I love (and by the end, hate) this series. It's always great to see Danug and Druwez again. But I find Jondalar to be too entitled, and Ayla's (or rather, Mother's) Gift of Knowledge is basically the beginning of the end for women. After such a matriarchy throughout the Other's cultures, this is a rather disappointing end.
Always dreading this book.
The only reason I give this book three stars and not one is because I love the series, but I still HATE this book. Why OH WHY did Jean Auel have to make their relationship like this? We see Jondalar's jealousy in previous books but he himself admits that he needs to improve his communication skills to overcome it. Yet why didn't he even try?
For a society which seems to be about worshipping women and the Mother, it seems very chauvinistic. It's alright to share pleasures with someone else but STILL there is that difference when a woman does it. Because she needs to appeal to the man's ego. It seems Ayla gives much more in this relationship than Jondalar and I hate it.
Also, WHY DID SHE HAVE TO SAY MEN ALSO HELP IN CONCEIEVING CHILDREN!! We all know what happens. I was just enjoying a little era when women were meant to be 'superior' because of this. We all know society deteriorated after and I didn't need this in the series. This could have been left for some blurry, cloudy future.
Always dreading this book.
The only reason I give this book three stars and not one is because I love the series, but I still HATE this book. Why OH WHY did Jean Auel have to make their relationship like this? We see Jondalar's jealousy in previous books but he himself admits that he needs to improve his communication skills to overcome it. Yet why didn't he even try?
For a society which seems to be about worshipping women and the Mother, it seems very chauvinistic. It's alright to share pleasures with someone else but STILL there is that difference when a woman does it. Because she needs to appeal to the man's ego. It seems Ayla gives much more in this relationship than Jondalar and I hate it.
Also, WHY DID SHE HAVE TO SAY MEN ALSO HELP IN CONCEIEVING CHILDREN!! We all know what happens. I was just enjoying a little era when women were meant to be 'superior' because of this. We all know society deteriorated after and I didn't need this in the series. This could have been left for some blurry, cloudy future.
And at last, what was possibly the slowest written series in the English language is over. I read Clan of the Cave Bear in 1982. No spoilers but anyone who has read the series saw the ending coming from 5 books back.. ok, one spoiler – we now know who’s to blame for the rise of the patriarchy.
It's a 3 part book. Part 1 has an earthquake that seemed promising as a plot device but in a foreshadowing of the rest of the book, it was a disappointment & came to nothing much.
Part 2 is the travel part and most of the book. It jumps 4 years ahead in the story for no reason whatsoever, expect possibly to age Jonayla enough so she can pee whenever she wants to rather than waiting for Ayla to take her out of the carrying basket.
Part 3 is where we get what little plot there is, though as was foreshadowed in part 1, this is a disappointment.
This book has the feel of Plains of Passage, lots of travel. So. Much. Travel. So many boring, dry, technical descriptions of landscape, rocks, soil, etc. Ayla is taken by Zelandoni all around France to see all the painted caves as part of her training. Fewer caves would have been fine. Or perhaps less description of them. Detail overload on the cave paintings. Lots of research went in to it but perhaps every last one of those findings did not need to make it into the narrative.
Also? Jondalar was missing much of the time. Oh he was around… in that vague way secondary characters are around & I think the book suffered from that. Especially since we learn in Part 3, last quarter of the book, that he has had this whole subplot of his own running since the beginning without word one mentioned until then. I think dragging that plot out into the light early on would have added some very much needed tension & character development to the story.
I’m glad I read it, I needed the closure after 30 years, but it was such a nonevent I wondered if I had really needed the closure that much.
It's a 3 part book. Part 1 has an earthquake that seemed promising as a plot device but in a foreshadowing of the rest of the book, it was a disappointment & came to nothing much.
Part 2 is the travel part and most of the book. It jumps 4 years ahead in the story for no reason whatsoever, expect possibly to age Jonayla enough so she can pee whenever she wants to rather than waiting for Ayla to take her out of the carrying basket.
Part 3 is where we get what little plot there is, though as was foreshadowed in part 1, this is a disappointment.
This book has the feel of Plains of Passage, lots of travel. So. Much. Travel. So many boring, dry, technical descriptions of landscape, rocks, soil, etc. Ayla is taken by Zelandoni all around France to see all the painted caves as part of her training. Fewer caves would have been fine. Or perhaps less description of them. Detail overload on the cave paintings. Lots of research went in to it but perhaps every last one of those findings did not need to make it into the narrative.
Also? Jondalar was missing much of the time. Oh he was around… in that vague way secondary characters are around & I think the book suffered from that. Especially since we learn in Part 3, last quarter of the book, that he has had this whole subplot of his own running since the beginning without word one mentioned until then. I think dragging that plot out into the light early on would have added some very much needed tension & character development to the story.
I’m glad I read it, I needed the closure after 30 years, but it was such a nonevent I wondered if I had really needed the closure that much.
Not nearly as good as the rest of the series. Very repetitive and, while obviously thoroughly researched, overly obsessive about cave descriptions. Also, I was left wanting at the end. Nothing really felt concluded after the last page was turned for me.