The Shelters of Stone (Earth's children, book 5)
by Jean M. Auel
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avg 3.74
Read in January, 2002
Total Crap. Enough of "Pleasures" and discriptive scenes of ice age Europe. Some new information and a plot would have been great. The series has gone from one of my favorite books (Clan of the Cave Bear) to something I almost didn't finish. The series started crashing with "Plains of Passage" where Jondalar and Ayla "Pleasured" themselves across the continent while righing wrongs, curing injustice and improving life styles in their spare time. "Shelter&qu...more
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Read in January, 2001
recommends it for:
only those people who have read the first four and are really committed to this series
I can't believe we had to wait 12 years for this book. It is a far cry from The Clan of the Cave Bear, which was captivating in its detail and character development. This book is in sore need of an editor. There is too much detailed description, and the pace moves incredibly slowly. Ayla is too perfect of a character, and the characters who don't like her are inevitably drunks or jealous bitches.
I feel really committed to this series, since I really loved the first two books, and lik...more
I feel really committed to this series, since I really loved the first two books, and lik...more
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recommends it for:
lovers of redundancy and detail
Auel has written a beautiful saga about prehistoric man, and if I weren't so attached to her characters and their fate, I would have chucked this book long ago. Sadly, this is the worst of the five--mainly because it lacks plot and interest. Auel spends 200 pages on their first day with the Zelandoni, about 600 on the first month or so, then suddenly the last months whizz by in, maybe, 100 pages. She is redundant not only from her previous books, but within the book itself. She makes the sam...more
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recommends it for:
only to people who are devoted to the series
This book is not worth reading unless you fell in love with Ayla in Clan of the Cave Bear and Valley of the Horses and are desperate to find out how her story continues. Each installment in this series is weighted down with the retelling of all of the previous books in the series, plus all the description that Jean Auel heaps into her books, to the point that this monster advances Ayla's story by barely a year. Typically, the description of technology, biology, and landscape in the Earth's Chi...more
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Read in November, 2007
Meh. What can I say. The series certainly continued on a horrible downward spiral. But why oh why did I read all of it? It couldn;t have been simply compulsion to finish.. And why do I find myself thinking about the story and the setting so much, could it have been because I have read nearly 3,000 pages of it over two months of my life? Hmmm, perhaps I liked it a little bit, if only for the familiarity of characters i have gotten to know (and hate!) so well. I wouldnt recommend anyone ...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
Anyone interested in a good story and with an interest in prehistory
This book took me longer to read that the previous four books - not because it wasn't interesting to read. Rather, I didn't want the book to end. Certainly, this book has some "fill" that could have be cut but it doesn't distract from what is overall, a great read. Ayla and Jondalar cross a great glacier dividing northern Europe to return to Jondalars people who live in natural spacious stone caves. Ayla is accepted by his people, well most of them. Of course, there are a few flies ...more
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I would have liked to like this one more since I waited so long for it, but it seems as if the author just get lazier each book. The research is amazing, but the plot, the characters, all of that fails more with each book.
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Drivel. Reads like a hastily filled in outline, thrown together during National Novel Writing Month, complete with shameless word padding. It's as if a completely different author took over.
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I have read her previous 4 books and generally enjoy them. The last one was 11 years ago. I like her character developement. Her main character is a young lady who is amazingly intellegent and insightfull. She has come up with amazing inventions and ideas that make her special and different. She was raised by neanderthal's (the clan or flatheads) and has had a child by them. The author goes into great depth explaining the culture, the land, plants and animals. One feels that they have gain...more
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Read in August, 2008
This is a review of the whole series.
I avoided this series for a long time just because it looked cheesy and at one point there was a very bad movie made about it. (So I hear. I trusted people who told me not to watch it.)
But a friend lent it to me during a personal book drought and I was totally hooked within a few pages. Not so much because of the author's intelligent, thoughtful prose (most definitely not the case) but because it deals with subjects near and dear to my heart - hunti...more
I avoided this series for a long time just because it looked cheesy and at one point there was a very bad movie made about it. (So I hear. I trusted people who told me not to watch it.)
But a friend lent it to me during a personal book drought and I was totally hooked within a few pages. Not so much because of the author's intelligent, thoughtful prose (most definitely not the case) but because it deals with subjects near and dear to my heart - hunti...more
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Read in October, 2008
I couldn't wait for this book to end. Repetitive repetitive repetitive. Auel uses the same phrases and descriptions so many times throughout all five books that it drove me batty. How many formal introductions of the same characters do there have to be? How many times do you have to tell the story of how Ayla acquired her animals, found Jondalar, was raised by flatheads, etc. etc. etc. Did Auel really need to write out the really long mother song multiple times??? And the thing that drove ...more
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Read in May, 2008
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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Read in November, 2006
"Ayla of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii, formerly of the Lion Camp of the Matmutoi, Daughter of the Mammoth Hearth. Chosen by the Spirit of the Cave Lion. Protected by the Cave Bear. Friend of horses and Wolf . . and mated to Jondalar of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandoni. If my name gets much longer, I won't be able to remember it all." Don't worry Ayla, anyone who has trudged through this book will have memorized this by sheer repetition. If I would have known that she was going to re...more
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
ages 21 and up or high maturity level
contains sex scene, high maturity level required. this entire series in not a porn type book series.
the reason i didnt type a review for the series so far was because it would take alot of time and effort. the time i dont have the effort in plenty lol. so far i have learned that sometimes you have to think and not follow "thats how its been done" to make progress in the world. It has also taught me that alot about the history and how people lived back in that time. (jean m auel is r...more
the reason i didnt type a review for the series so far was because it would take alot of time and effort. the time i dont have the effort in plenty lol. so far i have learned that sometimes you have to think and not follow "thats how its been done" to make progress in the world. It has also taught me that alot about the history and how people lived back in that time. (jean m auel is r...more
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terrible, terrible, terrible...
jean m. auel's first book in the series, 'the clan of the cave bear', was an amazing piece, one which has never been topped - each book in the series grows progressively worse in storyline, character depiction and just plain originality...
it's as though auel exhausted her creative juices long ago and simply recycles character reactions and interactions...
the result is a plot that clunks along, causing its readers to lose all interest in the continuing s...more
jean m. auel's first book in the series, 'the clan of the cave bear', was an amazing piece, one which has never been topped - each book in the series grows progressively worse in storyline, character depiction and just plain originality...
it's as though auel exhausted her creative juices long ago and simply recycles character reactions and interactions...
the result is a plot that clunks along, causing its readers to lose all interest in the continuing s...more
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Read in August, 2007
It's taken me many years, but I've finally finished all of The Earths Children Series.
There's almost a sadness to it. You get pretty attached to the characters, even though at times, they seem so poorly depicted you think no one could be that much of an idiot. But they are fun and interesting when taken lightly.
The one thing that did bother me throughout the series was how often things were repeated, in detail, when they didnt need to be. Or how "background" story would come up i...more
There's almost a sadness to it. You get pretty attached to the characters, even though at times, they seem so poorly depicted you think no one could be that much of an idiot. But they are fun and interesting when taken lightly.
The one thing that did bother me throughout the series was how often things were repeated, in detail, when they didnt need to be. Or how "background" story would come up i...more
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Kind of on the same level as The Plains of Passage. The plot was pretty weak, but since I have read the other books I did feel invested in finding out what happened to the protagonists. The character devopment seemed to stop after the first 2 novels in the series and then so many of the supporting characters became very 1 dimentional.
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I really enjoyed this book, not only for the content of the story, but also in anticipation of the next book in the series. The connection between Ayla and Jondalar is so compelling, that this book has made me both laugh and cry.
After reading this book, I went online to see if there was another in the series and/or if Jean Auel is in the process of writing the next installment. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any overwhelming evidence supporting this "theory". It's been man...more
After reading this book, I went online to see if there was another in the series and/or if Jean Auel is in the process of writing the next installment. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any overwhelming evidence supporting this "theory". It's been man...more
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Read in March, 2003
recommends it for:
Anyone who's read one of the others first.
Sometimes I wish I could be thrown into the woods with only a flint and a firestone. I know, LAME. But it's true. I wanna see if I can figure out my own way. Could I hunt? Hell ya I could! Could I find plants to eat and heal? I have no doubt. But the reality of the situation is, that the changes the world has taken also changed the landscape. And the even harsher reality is that it would be more bleek than my dreams of it would be. But I still appreciate this book for encouraging me to fantasize...more
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This is the fifth book in the series and I was really looking forward to the continuing saga of Ayla and Jondalar but all the repitition from the other books and Auel's extensive detailing of EVERYTHING became almost unbearable. I finished the book only to find out that the ending was left open for another book...really a bummer and rumor has it that Auel is not going to do the sixth book. Since it has been soooo many years since this book came out I am sadly dissapointed that it may be true. ...more
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