The Land of Painted Caves

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS.

I started reading these books when I was 13 in 1990, I grew up with Ayla and I loved her character. I loved books 1-4.

I was hugely disappointed with book 5 and then book 6 was even more disappointing.

One dimensional characters, the long descriptive narratives of the landscape had lost their edge and their interest, the storyline was cliched and a regurgitation of The Mammoth Hunters Ranec story, and Aylas big discovery, the thing that the all books had been leading up to, her great destiny? The enslavement of the female gender by males knowing they also have a part in making babies!!!

Ms Auel would have been better passing the mantle to a younger writer who had a passion for the books to develop their own ideas within her's, because it's obvious that she lost all her passion for Ayla and her story somewhere during the writing of Plains of Passage.

While I loved the previous books in the series, I found this one tedioius. All the characters are one dimensional, and the daughter may as well have been an inanimate object for all the detail given in the book. I was expecting a thrilling end to the saga, with a lot more of interest of the era and more detail in the traditions of the peoples of the area, espically for the length of time it took to be published. All in all a disappointment, and a let-down for the whole series.

I have just finished reading this book, and I was really sad when I finished! Considering I first started reading these books when I was quite young, I feel I have sort of grown up with Ayla and now her story has ended. Although these books can be quite slow at times, the connection that the author creates with the characters keeps me hooked and wanting to see what happens next. I thought that this book ended really well and tied up all of the loose ends quite well. This series is amazing and definitely well worth the read!