The Land of Painted Caves: Earth's Children, Book Six

Part one was a total waste of time. Glad I stuck with it though. It ended up being pretty good.

I read Auel for plucky survival stories, true love, sweeping environmental descriptions and landscapes, and character growth. This book doesn't deliver. It does deliver elaborate descriptions of cave art, over and over again with little in between them in Part One. It also delivers the Mother's Song in the same format as Shelters of Stone so it feels like filler. At the same time, large parts of the story seem missing. Leaving those parts out could have been forcing Ayla's viewpoint, which is a valid writing tool, but it deviates from all previous styles. We always knew what was going on behind the scenes or even across continents in previous books. I absolutely would have read Ayla & Jondalar's separate viewpoints, and following the Journeyer they meet towards the end would have been enthralling. We saw that kind of storytelling in Valley of Horses with Ayla & Jondalar's journeys, and it built anticipation up beautifully. As it stands, when they meet the Journeyer it feels contrived, like character insertion because they were distinctive and made an offhand comment three books ago. They also have insight on a situation Ayla & Jondalar have gotten themselves into again, but their final words on it feel artless and patronizing. The writing was simpler and easier to get through than Auel's usual style, which caused mixed feelings. I'd spent two weeks re-reading the other books to be sure I had a grounding in what was going on, so it was both a relief and a disappointment. There were continuity errors - Ayla keeps her amulet in a donii niche and uses a Zelandonii medicine bag until a scene requires her to have both, when she magically has them with her again. References to happenings in previous books are occasionally wrong, but then right in a later description. Characters use new words for relationships in casual conversation before they're invented near the end of the book, and Ayla has apparently learned to lie at some point (though honestly not much, it was just jarring). It didn't feel like Auel wrote it, it felt more like she provided an outline and the cave descriptions and handed it to someone else who hadn't internalized the characters or their personal journeys. TL;DR I would rather have left the story at the end of Shelters of Stone and been left guessing at what happens next than to have read this book, and that makes me incredibly sad.

I'm honestly sad this series came to an end. It was a great way to end one of the best series I have ever read.

All of Jean Auel books are tptally awesome

I love all of these books, Jean M Auel is truly an artist. There are parts in these books that I have skipped over just because i don't care for the intricate detailed descriptions of every aspect of each valley, hill and glacier that they go to. But, when i do read them they paint vivid, beautiful pictures of these landscapes. There are very nice lemons in this book, but they are not silly repetitive or ridiculously long. They are well written and fit the flow of the story very well and are not forced into the storyline. All in all these books have probably been some of my favorite!!

Finally a book that brings the series together; an amazing read but not as great as "Clan of the Cave Bear. This fifth book is a 'must read.' I've enjoyed all of them.