Rating: 
Summary: very disappointing!
Review: This book is equivalent to my 6th grader's book report. I am extremely disappointed that Ms Auel can not call it quits.Don't waste time reading the jacket cover!
Rating: 
Summary: Another great read
Review: Jean Auel does it again. This book is just as good as the previous 4. This book will have you wishing it wouldn't end, and when it does, it has you wanting more. Fabulous read, highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: The Shelter of Ennui
Review: Having gloried in the first four Auel books, I was anxiously awaiting this present volume. What a disappointment! After four tales of high adventure around which were couched loads of information about stone age living, we come to this new effort. I have slogged through the first 300 pages of this tome, and now it rests on the shelf. (Editing out reduncancies and there might be a worthwhile thirty page read here). In those first 300 pages nothing more exciting happens than a dirty trick involving clothing and a death at a hunt, providing I suppose a plot ploy to expose Ayla's healing powers. Not much high dudgeon here. Frankly, the book reads more like ... manual for the stone age then a tale fashioned by a writer who proved capable of excellence in her earlier works.`
Rating: 
Summary: Trish Marie... AMEN!
Review: Sorry Folks... She should have quit when she was ahead. I am an avid fan of Jean Auel and also a would-be anthropologist who loves reading new information about this era & the theories of lifestyle comparison between Neanderthals & Homo Sapiens, but this pretty much bored the hell outta me!Reviewer Trish Marie summed it all up quite nicely... tell me a story. In past novels, along with the detailed description of everything in this ice age, she did tell a great story as well and that's where she drew her large fan-base. This book was filled with information, some very intriguing, but most of it was tedious and repetative. I too skipped numerous pages throughout, wishing something more incredible and suspenseful would happen. Instead, I was left to my own imagination as to what else could have happened to liven up the book. Couldn't there have been something more intense happen in the first half of the book, other than Ayla proving she wasn't embarrassed to wear boys' winter underware in public? And how many times did we read the detailed description of her new ideas and finds, which we had already read about in previous books? I think I can now teach a class on how to start a fire with flint and "firestones", without even have seen the stones myself. I have great respect for Ms. Auel, and have even listed her as one of my writing influences in the past. I'm deeply sorry to say that she should have concentrated more on the story ~ breathing some life into it, or perhaps hung up her quill at the end of Mammoth Hunters. Having Ayla & Jondalar stay with the Mammoth Lodge, beginning her new family, could have been a very satisfying ending there.
Rating: 
Summary: Why all the criticizm?
Review: I don't know what every one is so upset about. Sure, this book was not as exciting as the first couple but that's because all the main characters were new, the scenery was new, etc. Was the auther supposed to change the characters and the scenery just to keep things exciting? And yes, like in all of her books there were a lot of detailed descprtions of landscapes and animals, but these books are the some of the only books I have read where I could actually feel myself there and vividly picture the events unfolding. Honestly would it have been better if she had just written "There are these people that live in these caves and hunt some animals". I really enjoyed the book, I enjoyed reading about Ayla and Jondalar settling into their mated life and looking forward to their new family. I guess if I have one criticizm it would have to be the ending, I really expected to turn the page and read more, but it just kind of ended abruptly. However I still enjoyed the book and know others that did too and would recommend it to any one who is a fan of this series.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: I enjoyed her previous books. This one is, if not the most, at least a serious contender for, the most boring book I have ever read. Thank God I'm finished with it. What preserverance to complete it at all!.
Rating:
Summary: Very Disappointing
Review: I, like most others, have been anxiously awaiting this book. As one of the other reviewer's suggested, I too appreciate Auel's obvious effort in the researching of this book. However, nothing happens! In over 700 pages of text, we get repetition and excrutiating detail. Auel's last book led us to believe that we would encounter a major conflict between Ayla's two sons in the next book .... I don't want to say anything bad about this book either and thought that maybe since it had been so long since I had read the others, that I had forgotten about all the detail. I had to read the other reviews for validation, this book is LONG and monotonous and the story itself is weak. I read the entire series because of Ayla's amazing strength and her ability to overcome. She overcomes very little in this book and actually, the story seems to be an afterthought to the research. The conversations and feelings are written in a choppy way and the book doesn't seem to flow at all. One minute Ayla is doing something or feeling something interesting and the next we are back to the description of the landscape or that extremely long poem. There is also A LOT of repitition of the other stories in this book. Not only does she repeat the other stories but she actually repeats things that happened in the other books over and over in this one. I will probably read the final book in the series but I hope Auel has the sense to read what her readers think about this one.
Rating:
Summary: I waited so long....
Review: I bought the whole series (The Clan of the Cave Bear, Valley of Horses, The Mammoth Hunters, Plains of Passage, The Shelters of Stone) so I could relive the excitement I felt when I first read them years ago. By the time I finished the Plains of Passage, I was getting bored with the repetition. Then I started Shelters and was so disappointed I wanted to scream, it was worse! Much worse! How many times do we have to hear the Iza taught Ayla to wash after sex? This book was a disappointment. I hope Ms. Auel doesn't rely on previous material in the final book of the series to fill in the space between the covers!
Rating:
Summary: A new and improved story for Auel
Review: I have read all of Auels Earth Childrens books except her fifth one. However, based on the reviews that have I read, I was not exactly dejected. Its just that I would have liked for Auel to write something about an encounter with Ayla's real mother or perhaps someone who knew her mom. It would have also been interesting if Ayla could once more see her son, Durc. I also think that she should make Ayla more human since, not this great heroine who knows about everything and who almost always does everything right. Perhaps Ayla should have some sort of rival, like someone quite similar and popular as her so that readers may find more suspense. Auel should have also added to her novel unexpected occurences and new things. I don't want for Ayla to always save her patients and invent the latest stuff. Why don't Auel just say Ayla is a goddess! Readers don't like to know what to expect throughout the whole story. We want to be surprised! I do recommend all of Auel's books. ...
Rating:
Summary: *sigh* I guess it couldn't last forever
Review: No one is a bigger fan of "The Clan of the Cave Bear" than I am - I've read it cover-to-cover at least 10 times since 1996. And the same goes for the others in the series (especially "The Mammoth Hunters") which were all really great. I will not be rereading "Shelters," I'm sorry to say. I got the impression that the whole story, inflated to over 700 pages, could have easily fit in the first 100 pages of the next book. All the conflict built up to in the last few books - especially the very big question of the Zelandonii's acceptance of Ayla and her Clan background and son - were dismissed entirely. Oops, I guess Jondalar didn't have reason to be worried after all. Kind of makes you wonder why he almost left her behind out of fear of his people's reaction. There's no story here - just constant introduction and repetition. Read it only if you plan to read the 6th, so you won't be lost in a maze of characters.
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