I love these books and have read some in the Earth's Children series many times because I love the detailed descriptions of their way of life. I actually started reading them in the 4th or 5th grade. I loved reading about how they hunted, gathered and stored their food, made clothing and jewelry, and the contrasts between the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon in those aspects. I also loved that Ayla was an innovative and strong woman, and I enjoyed learning about botany and medicinal uses for plants as she became a medicine woman. That being said, the story can get a little goofy and redundant in the later books, and I can see how some may call it "prehistoric porn" as the author is as descriptive when it comes to Ayla's sexual encounters as she is in describing the making of a healing poultice of mustard seeds or a ochre tunic.

This book was powerful for me. It brought to life a world disappeared by more than 10,000 years. Ayla is such an inspiration and strong woman. I love her dedication to life and to her tribe and to herself. I love that she became a medicine woman. This book is one of a kind.

Girl power in the age of Neanderthals
I had not expected it at all, but I enjoyed reading this, because as a story this is quite strong. Auel has made a tremendous creative effort to reconstruct the Neanderthals' world, based on what was known at the time of publication in 1980, and she has woven an original and dramatic storyline around it, including many own interpretations anf fantasy elements, of course. With main character Ayla, the Sapiens girl who was found by the Neanderthal tribe and grows up with them, she actually puts a clear feminist accent. This is also manifestly a political novel, in which the thoughtful tribal leader Brun is contrasted with the rash incoming leader Broud.

Especially the psychological side of the novel is extraordinarily strong. This is evident in the passages in which the characters muse about their own feelings and those of others in the clan, about how they best handle certain situations and how they can or cannot reconcile long and short term. There is clearly also a teacher in Auel, because she gives a lot of attention to explaining special features of clan life, such as the magical ceremonies, the techniques for hunting or using medicinal plants. But sometimes she exaggerates, which slows down the story. From a historical and scientifical point of view, her book doesn’t hold on: her Neanderthal world contains too much fantasy-elements. But her basic intuition, namely that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens have interbred in the meanwhile has been confirmed by paleo-genetic research. More on these historical aspects in my History-account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

Wow! That was a great adventure of a read! I truly loved and enjoyed everything about this book. It was unlike anything I have ever read before. I was completely drawn into the story right from the very beginning until the last three, heartbreaking words that end the book. I loved the main character Ayla; one of the bravest woman characters I've ever come across in a story. No love interest or triangle that usually comes along with every story where the main character is female. This story was about a woman who is trying to survive, and doesn't let anyone or anything stand in her way to learn about the world around her, to love and care for those she loves and to dare to be as brave and strong as any man.

A book I highly recommend!

I *really* wanted to dig this book. I have a burgeoning obsession with prehistory, evolution, and the antecedents of man, and a tale of Cro Magnons and Neanderthals is exactly what I'd love to read.

Sadly, this book does not contain that tale.

Instead, it's a goopy mess of inane metaphysics, prurience for prurience's sake, and a none-too-subtle dollop of racism, as the blonde-haired and light-skinned heroine shows the more primitive (and darker-skinned) Neanderthals how to do--well, just about everything.

This is a white man's burden fantasy writ large, and not writ very well.

n  Fantastic! Phenomenal! The ultimate in creative, imaginative story telling.n
How else can I describe a book that transports the reader back to a time in history where there were no books, writing or pictorial records to chart early life forms but makes it so believable you think this could have actually taken place. What an extraordinary imagination author Jean M. Auel tapped into by taking the fossils that we all have seen in museums and the numerous pieces of scientific hypothetical information and forming a pre-historical fiction around them. It's amazing the details of the flora, fauna and terrain of the prehistoric earth in general that was described in such a way that the reader really is left feeling as if this novel was part story, part history lesson.

When I learned about this book some years ago, I was intrigued. I thought it would be more Fantasy fiction but since I'm not adverse to this genre I thought I'd give it a try. I did eventually pick it up on one of my many book hauls. And then it sat. It's a thick book. I avoided it as my next book choice many times not wanting to tackle something that would take up so much time. I for some reason pictured the Hollywood version of scruffy cave people with shaggy hanging furs and bones in their hair. I avoided it because of this. I categorized it as Fantasy and I seemed to never be in the mood for that. There's a lyric in a song by hip hop artist Talib Kweli where he makes reference to The Clan of the Cave Bear. Hearing that song would remind me that I needed to read the book. But I kept dancing and didn't. Sometimes it would make it off of the shelf into a book line up and just lost out to other books that I was feeling at the time. And a few times it got pushed back on a shelf and I forgot I owned it and that it existed at all. For all these avoidances, I say to The Clan of the Cave Bear, I'm very sorry. I had no idea you were so good. It look for the political drama of my country's election for me to not only remember this book but go seeking it out as a distraction. I joked with friends that I didn't even want to live in 2016 right now. I grabbed this book and have gone back to Cave man times to hold onto my sanity. And I've enjoyed every single lost in time moment with this book. I'm glad I stopped judging this book by its cover or my stereotypical assumption of cave people.

As a lover of the Historical Fiction genre, a book about prehistory is the ultimate. I'll tell those who haven't read it. It's not Hollywood bones and shaggy carpet clothing at all. It's realistic. It's engaging. It's engrossing. It's tribal. And you finish the book knowing you want to continue to the next book. I actually went out and purchased the next book when I was half way through this first one. I don't have that great luck with series, so I hope it does continue to carry me through to the last book.
I'm giving it 5 stars. It was very entertaining, transportive and as an author, what a project.

3 stars



It’s official, my tastes are slowly changing in books. I didn’t love this book as much as I did. And I find at times I love a particular book in a series and I’ll just keep that physical book and trade in the rest. What’s the point of keeping things you just don’t love any more.

I have the beautiful mass market paperbacks of these books. I loved the second book at the time but we shall see and I want to finish them out. I have this first book on kindle and audible as well. I might just get the other ones if I like them in those formats. I just don’t know.

I love Ayla and her animals dearly, but I just don’t like reading certain things any more.

Mel

No this book is not perfect and perhaps it might seem a bit immature in places to some readers, but in the long run, this will turn out to be one of the books that you may end up thinking of as a classic.

There are 6 books in the series:

☛The Clan of the Cave Bear, 1980
☛The Valley of Horses, 1982
☛The Mammoth Hunters, 1985
☛The Plains of Passage, 1990
☛The Shelters of Stone, 2002
☛The Land of Painted Caves, 2011

While every book seems to go a bit downhill from this first one (at least the last 3 books seem to in my opinion) they actually provide a platform in which Ayla our main character grows.

This first book truly shows how the author had researched the Ice Age ( Europe during the Upper Paleolithic Age) to write this and you can tell that she did her own physical research too.

The story is an interesting one, beginning with an earthquake that finds our main character, a Cro-Magnon child lost at about 5 years old. After being mauled by a cave lion, she is found by a group of Neanderthals and her life is saved.

She now grows up in a very difficult situation which ends up sort of - modern man vs prehistoric man. If you read this book, towards the end you will see why I say it like that.

The growth of the character Ayla shows very dramatically in this first novel, especially if you consider she was only about 11 or so when she had her first child. Throughout the series, you will see her growing more and more as she goes off to find "her own people".

Most people felt that the last book was a cop out, I happened to find it a gentle conclusion after so many long years of waiting. I hadn't been happy with the last several books so the last one did not surprise me at all.

I am now off to re-read the entire series!

Happy Reading!

TRUE STORY: reading Clan of the Cave Bear to augment one's understanding of the Upper Paleolithic era is like reading Playboy for the articles. . . .

This was a great pick! I thoroughly enjoyed this read!
Set during prehistoric times, Ayla’s Home and her family are lost to a devastating earthquake. Homeless and alone she wanders the land, barely surviving, until she is found by Iza - a member of The Clan.
Ayla struggles to fit in and to be accepted by The Clan, its customs foreign to her. Their treatment of women being the main hurdle - all women are below men in status, expected to cook for the men, never to ignore a direct order from a man and certainly never allowed to hunt!
As time progresses The Clan become accustomed to the different girl, and she integrates. But not everyone is so understanding- Broud, the son of the Clan leader hates Ayla fiercely and will do whatever necessary to bring her down! With some scenes slightly shocking, I couldn’t stop turning the pages!
This novel was full of vivid descriptions, including the way cave people lived - their local sources of food, clothing and intricate belief system. A wonderful selection of characters, I was reminded of the Disney film ‘Brother Bear’ where each Clan member has a spirit totem, in the form of an animal - I was fully engrossed in this world, and look forward to continuing it.

I loved this book when I was a teen. Indirectly, it lead to my pursuit of a BA in Anthropology. Perhaps it is that Anthropology degree that has rendered the book unreadable for me 25 years later.

This was one of the first "grown-up" books I read, along with The Thorn Birds, excluding Harlequins. Honestly, I didn't love it and I didn't read all the sequels, although I remember my friends chatting about it. Meanwhile, I had discovered Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart and Ken Follett and I had plenty to read.