Rating: 
Summary: Where is the 'Clan of the Bear' writer?
Review: More than half of this book is like reading two different books, one chapter at a time. In one of them, Ayla is Isaac Newton of her era. No wonder Jondalar confused her as a Donii. In the other part you learn about the sexual adventures of two young men. The end of the book is all about sex. Don't get me wrong, I like sex stories, but not when they do not add anything to the story. This book could be much more about the clashing of the Clan and the Others cultural references. It actually gave me some hope when Jondalar and Ayla met. But some chapters later she learns Jondalar's language in a nightmare and from then on it's all about solving relationship problems.I read the reviews of the next 3 books and I'm really disappointed. What happened to Broud? What happened to Durc? Why is Durc the next step of the Clan? And finally, who wrote the first book?
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as the first one, but enjoyable
Review: Ayla's character is still strong and interesting. She survives years on her own in a land of beauty and danger. This part of the book is good, but the rest of the book details the travels of Jondalar, a physically perfect specimen with the mind of a 16-year old. His inner struggle with life-long prejudices and worries over social status become boring. And contrasting with the first book, this second book introduces numerous graphic sexual encounters that add nothing to the story. While the "Clan of the Cave Bears" is a wonderful book for teenagers, this one is definitely not. The best way to read it is to skip every other chapter and just follow the story of Ayla's survival.
Rating: 
Summary: I was very impressed....
Review: You always expect less than the first when reviewing the sequel but this one was definitly it's equal. Auel continued to take everything that made the first one great but she added a new emotion to this one which made it wonderful. True love. Sure in the first one Ayla had love for her son and love for her family but it wasn't the same. True love seems to be one of those things that very few are privelaged to find and for someone to put the very emotion of it and prepare it on paper I think is incredible. I'm not a romance buff because I tilt more to the historical books but I think anyone who feels like they have something in their life missing can relate to this story. The story line was completly imaginative and amazing. Because of the way she plays her words I can see the story unfolding in my head. I would even go to be dreaming the story becuase her books just captured my mind. With her details and research...definitly left me impressed once again.
Rating:
Summary: amazing, as usual
Review: Ayla is alone in the valley, And Jondalar is far away. The moment they meet worths the whole story. It's a great read, you are going to be stunned by the writer's spilling knowledge. I loved this book
Rating:
Summary: loved it, best of the series
Review: This is they continuing tale of Ayla, our heroine from Clan of the Cave Bear. It also introduces us to Jondalar, the man that Ayla will come to love. Alya is forced to leave the clan, the only family she has known to make it on her own...no easy task. Fortunatly, she already knows to hunt and she can heal...so she is a step ahead of the game. This book takes us through her learning to make it on her own, as well as how Jondalar comes to with her. I loved it too, because I found the whole discription of ancient life very interesting.
People complain because Ayla is too perfect and does too much in her life (domesticating horses, discovering cave age lighters), but it is not completely implausable.
At any rate, this is a great book that is well-researched and it is one of those books that I've read many, many times!
Loved it! Loved it! Loved it!
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as the first volume
Review: After reading the Clan of the Cavebear, I was slightly disappointed by parts of this book--while it has some truly magnificent spots, it lags and gets extremely repetitive in others. For the first 350 or so pages, the book alternates between the continuing story of Ayla and the story of the newly introduced characters, Jondalar and his brother Thonolan. Ayla's story begins with her journey from the Clan to the Valley of the Horses, which while interesting at first begins to drag after the third nearly identical description of the process by which she goes about crossing a river. Her sections of the book pick up considerably after she arrives at the Valley. Here, her story evolves into a look at how one person could survive without the aid of a Clan in a way that would rival any wilderness survival story. However, Auel seems to want to give Ayla credit for every single invention of the period. After explaining how remarkable the ideas are and how no one else on the entire planet could ever have considered them, Ayla is given credit for discovering the use of flint and steel to make fire, pit traps, the travois, the overall idea of altering the physical environment to suit her needs, the domestication of the horse, and so on. Auel also splices in liberal quotations from the Clan of the Cavebear about minor and for the most part not even very relevant discussions and events that Ayla remembers. Jondalar and his brother are similarly on a Journey of their own in which they meet the inhabitants of other Caves, during which they have a number of gratuitous and overly described yet prosaic sexual encounters. This storyline seemed artificial, more like a progression of scenes forced together to jam some bland English 101 style characterization down the readers' throats. By far, the chapters about these brothers are the weakest section of the novel. There are also a few moments that interrupt the flow of the story in which Auel talks about the changes of this or that geological feature up to the present time, which I found to be interesting and well written. However, mentions to events over the countless years after this story takes place are nonetheless rather distracting, and even somewhat inappropriate to the world of the story. With a bit more editing, this could have been an excellent book, as Clan of the Cavebear was from cover to cover. This is also a very good book, but it often wanders off as if it does not know where it is going. The end result still left me with enough hope for the series to get the third book, but not much more.
Rating:
Summary: The best in the series
Review: The Valley of Horses is the second book in Jean M Auels magnificent 'Earth's Children' series. Having been exiled from the clan that raised her, Ayla now has to set out on a journey to find the 'others', cro-magnons like herself.
This is the epic tale of a young girl's struggle to survive by overcoming fear and adapting to being alone in a strange and hostile environment.
During her travels Ayla discovers the valley that becomes her home and her haven and it is here that she find much longed for companionship with the horse she raises from being a foal.
Running parallel to this is the story of two cro-magnon brothers who have set off on a journey in search of adventure. Ms Auel manages to handle these two story strands with ease and switching between them never 'jars'. Eventually the two tales intertwine and become one as Ayla finally comes face to face with one of her own kind. As rich in detail as the first book in the series, this book is an absorbing read and is difficult to put down. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: VERY slow start
Review: The first 18 chapters of this book really dragged. The story of Jondalar and Thonolan was exceedingly dull and could have been at least half as long as it was. For having so little pertinence to what happens later, it was way too long. Alya's intermittent story in the first 18 chapters was still worth reading, though. But it wasn't until chapter 19, when Jondalar and Ayla meet that it started to get really interesting. After that, the book was a much faster read. But considering that 75% of the book isn't that great, it was somewhat of a disappointment, after the every-page-is-interesting Clan of the Cave Bears.
Rating:
Summary: Book Two Continues the Interesting Saga of Ayla!
Review: Wonderful second book as Ayla approaches adulthood and finds romance and adventures with her new found friend in a realistic setting that makes us feel as if we are there each day, sharing in their experiences! Carefully researched and well-written. Good read!
Evelyn Horan - teacher/counselor/author
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl, Books One - Three
Rating:
Summary: Please don't read only the negative reviews
Review: People, people. Please don't ignore the good reviews, too. One would think, by reading only the negative reviews, that this book is Playboy in disguise. Of course, this book is not for children, but it is not intended to be, either. You don't need me to tell you that sex is a natural part of the lives of adults, and always has been. There is nothing sinful or inherently distasteful about portraying it as such. Sex was as much a part of the lives of Ayla and Jondalar, and it is a shame that in today's society we can't be nearly as comfortable with the subject as they were.
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