Rating: 
Summary: Shelters of Stone
Review: After waiting 11 years I was really disappointed. It seemed that everytime someone new was introduced, it took three paragraphs to tell who they were. Maybe Jean Auel will have another book out in about 20 years and by then I won't be around to read it. A very drawn out tale, not what I had expected.
Rating:
Summary: Timing
Review: After reading the previous novels many times over and now still trying to get through Shelters, I beleive there is a huge difference in Jean Auel's mental effort and her desire to share herself with her readers. In Valley of Horses, the character development was undeniable. Auel created a character that was just learning what it meant to be an adult and live on her own, shunned by those who she thought would always be there for her and chose to survive when it would have been easier to give up.
What seems so stunningly different about Shelters is Auel has lost the desire to communicate human suffering and triumph which is what books 1-3 were mostly about and, I'm guessing, somewhat of what her own life must have been like. Only someone who has been through it could describe the emotions given to Ayla.
Has Jean advanced in years to the point where it's not as interesting to shape a character and their emotional growth as life progresses?
Jean, your earlier books were written with an understanding of the depth of human suffering that many people will never know and only those who've been through it can identify with. Where did that person go that wrote those earlier books?
Ayla and Jondalar were both thrilling characters and very interesting to get to know. In Shelters, however, their relationship stalls as does all character development. Additionally, the story so far shows no signs of coming together. I got so desperate for a story that I read the end of the book to see if anything interesting was going to happen to make getting through the rest of it worthwhile.
Jean, for the sixth and final book, please find the effort to write an amazing tale that leaves all of us wanting more...as all good books do.
Rating: 
Summary: The Shelters of Stone
Review: After waiting 12 years for this book to come out ( I had given up hope) I was some what disapointed. I have come to expect Alya to be an independant and resoureful woman. It is as if she has just settled into the routine of daily life. Mostly the book covered what had been already written. Some of the pages were tedious and hard to keep up with. It took me about 3 days to read The Mammoth Hunters, I just couldn't stop reading. This one has left me with a bad taste. If I have to wait another 12 years to continue the saga I will be hard pressed to pay the price for the hard cover edition, and will wait till I can check it out or paperback.
Rating:
Summary: Great Expectations - but
Review: I couldn't bring myself to get past the first hundred pages. The writing is repetitive and oversimplified. I felt like I was reading a grown up "Dick and Jane". I won't go to see movies like "Dumb and Dumber" and I don't read novels written like The Shelters of Stone.I loved Clan of the Cave Bear...but this...Oh no, Mr. Bill!
Rating: 
Summary: An acceptable recovery.
Review: I am a fan of Jean Auel's books, and remember waiting for plains of Passage to be released. If I remember right, it felt like years. I suspect that several people, like myself, were dissapointed a little in the change in writing style, and more importantly, the lack of depth that the book seemed to have. Here, Jean Auel makes a recovery. I was unnerved dropping a hard-cover price on this book after being so dissapointed with the last one, but fortunately I was not dissapointed this time. It is a nice read, full of detail, and fortunately Ayla lost that vapid ignorance spell she seemed to pick up in the earlier book. There seems to be a bit of an issue finding the 'plot', per se, but as the whole series seems to have wholly drifted into the romance genre that is not surprising. Fortunately, it is not laid on unbearably thick in this novel.
Rating:
Summary: good entry in "Strong WomanUsesHerbs" genre
Review: I like Ayla, I really do. I also read her story very quickly-it was light and entertaining-which is all I asked of this book. BUT..I'm beginning to feel that all new historical fiction/romance that features a strong woman follows the exact same formula: Beautiful woman meets strong sexy man. He loves her with great passion. She is smart and from a different people. She speaks a foreign language. She must win over his people, especially a female relative. She is so wonderful and smart that she outwits all of her enemies. Her talents include healing-with the use of herbs. The story includes a lot of cooking, where every smell and ingredient are described to the reader. That is the core of this story..but that doesn't give it away because that is how these stories progress. Go ahead get the book, take it to the beach, But Clan of the Cave Bear it ain't.
Rating:
Summary: Where is Jean Auel and what has been done with her?
Review: Sadly, this much-anticipated sequel is a watered down version of Auel's incredible capacity. While it was gratifying finally to have more pieces to the story, one has to wonder if Jean Auel lost her heart and interest in the story during her twelve years of research and writing. She seems far more caught up in tedious replications of the wonders she feels she saw during her research journeys then she does in telling Ayla's story. The first time I read The Shelters of Stone I found myself floored at the changes in the flavor of the overall story as well as Ayla's character. Yes Ayla continues to portray herself as a medicine woman ... but her fans certainly did not get to see her in medical action the way we've come to expect. We continually receive hints that Marona will generate a big conflict, but nothing ever happens. Brukeval is nearly ready to come to blows with Ayla ... yet again, nothing ever happens. Neither does any of the suspense building from previous books for this portion of the series ever come to fruition. After hundreds of pages of the initial few weeks after Ayla and Jondalar arrive and go to the Summer Meeting, suddenly months go by in a short span and the book is over. Furthermore, while it's always been apparent that Auel has a real penchant for repeating certain information throughout her stories, she truly seems to carry it too far this time. Among other oft-repeated information, the Mother's Story was tiresome in its repetition. Before I made a final opinion, I read the previous four books again. I then reread The Shelters of Stone, only to indeed find myself dreadfully disappointed after all the anticipation. I fervently hope Jean Auel takes her readers opinions to heart, and displays the incredible capacity for spell-binding authorship her fans know her to be fully capable of when she regales us with the next book in the series.
Rating: 
Summary: Quit Your Whining
Review: The bottom line is, Jean has once again delivered a fun, entertaining read that also happens to be well researched and thought out. I took on about a hundred pages a day and finished in a bit over a week. And I'll bet so did everyone else who is out here in cyberspace complaining about things. Ayla is still wonderful, the ice age continues to be compellingly brought back to life, and I will happily buy the rest of our newly-minted Zelandoni's life story-be it in one more volume-or six! And so will most of you! So there.
Rating: 
Summary: Kind of good, kind of bad
Review: I liked the book, but little things in it were annoying. I swear it probably talked about how different people noticed Ayla's accent a million times! There were simaler repitions that bugged me too; I could probably even write a 700 page book about them. Overall, I still liked the storyline and characters. I also thought it was an improvement over the last book which I found boring and tedious. (I didn't read all of it, I just skipped over the boring stuff.) Anyway, I hope Auel didn't spend the entire 12 years on the book because from the other reviews I read it looks like people didn't think much of it.
Rating:
Summary: oh, sad, sad day
Review: Blah.
I don't really know what to say.
As someone who has a degree in anthropology, I actually love the detail that has always been heavily present in these books. I *like* the "boring" bits. But this was far, far worse than I could ever imagine. Repetition. No, none, zero conflict. Cardboard characters. No plot. The last 40-odd pages sounded more like the Auel we all know and love, but those cannot possibly justify the 700 pages of junk. The only element in that huge section that got me truly excited was Ayla's (inevitable) discovery of the cave that we know today as Lascaux.
I was 14 when I finished the series that gave me an inkling about what I wanted to study in college...I'm now 25. And I'm horribly disappointed and heartsick. Jean Auel, what were you thinking??
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