Rating: 
Summary: Here we go again - Romance among the woolly mammoths.
Review: Like its predecessor, 'The Clan of the Cave Bear' this novel is well-written but ethnocentric. The archaic Homo sapiens (Neanderthals) have disappeared, which is a pity considering their rich culture and belief system. Instead we have the person who is deemed worthy of being Ayla's mate - a tall, blond, blue-eyed Cro-Magnon like herself, who could show Don Juan a thing or two when it comes to sex. The happy couple also invent the spear-thrower and learn how to light a fire with flint - in the process Jondalar of the amazing virility meets the only woman who can love him. Try a Harlequin, they're cheaper.
On the plus side, 'The Mammoth Hunters' and 'The Plains of Passage' are bad enough to make this book look good.
Rating: 
Summary: Adventure and Romance
Review: First, I think that Auel is a fantastic writer. The amount of research that she does for her books, and the rumored number of rewrites that she's done as new information surfaces makes the books in this series very good - you know that when she describes how they hunt that that was how it was done. The characters are great; well developed and likeable people. and the storyline is original (or it was at the time it was written, these days everyone is churning out historial fiction). With that said, let me say that the book reads like Tami Hoag's first thriller "Lucky's Lady", in that it features a lot of sex for no reason at all. It's obvious that much of the sex in the storyline is gratuitous, almost all of it unnecassry to further along the plotline.
Rating: 
Summary: Leonarda da Stoneage meets He-Man
Review: After reading Clan of the Cave Bear, of course I had to read The Valley of Horses to find out what happened to Ayla. Although I felt sometimes reminded of "The Island of The Blue Dolphins" by Scott O'Dell, I found the author's descriptions of Ayla's life in the valley interesting and this is the only reason why I give this book four stars. The story of Jondalar and his brother was often boring and towards the end of the book, I skip-read most of it. I find Mighty Hung Jon one of the most irritating characters I've ever encountered in a book. It would have done the story a lot of good if he hadn't been created as such a (physically) perfect specimAn. The book as a whole would have profited from more thorough editing, especially the deletion of unnecessary and boring descriptions (e.g. of boat building). 100 pages less would have made a big difference! All in all, I found it a nice, easy read for a lazy Saturday. The story is mostly predictable. No challenge whatsoever, except (sometimes) of my patience.
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely Fascinating!
Review: I just had to say something about Jean Auels books, after reading the many reviews I've found. I'm just now getting into reading historical fiction. Clan of the Cave Bears really kept my attention, as the author did such a wonderful job of describing Ayla's life as she was raised by the Neanderthal Clan. The final actions taken by the Clan to put the death curse upon her were a litle surprising, but of course without Ayla leaving the clan, there would likely only be one book instead of the 5 in the series. The Valley of the Horses gave an awesome account of the adolescent girl teaching herself about survival skills, which she honed in order to stay in the Valley for 3 years alone. Jondular entering the picture was her first opportunity to see the "Others" that were more like her than the clan was. I did not object at all to the sex scenes. After all, sex is a part of almost everyone's daily life, and like it or not, it's how we all got here! To make it sacred and beautiful made it all the more special And it also lent a sharp contrast to the way the Clan treated sexual activity.
The novel certainly held my interest from beginning to end. Auel's descriptions sometimes do get a little lengthy, but she weaves them into the plot with a great deal of skill and knowledge,making the reader feel like she is part of it all. Spellbinding! Couldn't put it down!
Rating: 
Summary: A sad execution of a idea that deserves better.
Review: This book is the sequel to "The Clan of the Cave Bear" and apparently the second in a four part series. In "The Clan of the Cave Bear" the author starts off with a great idea: exploring human relationships in prehistoric times when mankind had evolved into two contemporary branches. This clever premise is enough to sustain the original despite a worrying tendency to read twentieth century ideas and attitudes into stone age characters. In "The Valley of Horses" a trickle becomes a flood. Our heroine, a Cro-Magnon raised by Neanderthals, is banished from her adopted patriarchal society, in part for demonstrating that women, too, are capable of hunting. Forced into a solitary existence, she proceeds to discover how to generate fire from flint and iron, domesticates animals, learns to ride a horse and invents the spear thrower. One wonders if movable type and the transistor are next. Her latter achievement is accomplished in conjunctio! n with her significant other, a Cro-Magnon from a more advanced and (naturally) matriarchal society, who evinces all the characteristics of the archtypal sensitive male. He accepts female leadership, cries, shows concern for women's sexual satisfaction, and eagerly enters into a mutually supportive realtionship with our heroine. The term "stone age yuppies" comes to mind. The book degenerates into a ham handed projection of late twentieth attitudes onto the stone age, with a strong emphasis on feminism, leading me to believe that the author is either utterly incapable of transcending her own culture or so obsessed with making a point that she loses sight of what she is trying to do. A sad execution of a idea that deserves better.
Rating:
Summary: Repetitious
Review: First off, I liked Clan of the Cave Bear because of its imagination. This book is not as good. For one thing, everything in the book gets repeated, and then repeated again, and then repeated again. We aren't stupid, we got it the first time. For another, about 2/3 of the book is spent romanticizing an entirely unbelievable new character (Jondalar) who we don't even care about until at least mid-way through the book.
I found myself skipping entire pages and never missing having read them.
Maybe the Mammoth Hunters will be better. We'll see.
Rating:
Summary: Great, but NOT a kid's book!
Review: I really enjoyed this book, but after reading it, was surprised that my mom gave it to me when I was in middle school. Auel did an excellent job reseraching for this and all the other Earth's Children novels, but be careful who you give this book to, because there's a lot of sexual stuff in the book. It's not bad, but sometimes it sounded like a cheap romantic novel. I enjoyed it, but I can't believe they consider it a kid's book.
Rating:
Summary: Another must-read, and almost impossible to put down.
Review: Once again the author has masterfully created a truly compelling story that draws the reader into a world unlike any other. And once again the reader is left with a lust for more.
Rating:
Summary: Oops, I went to sleep on earth and woke up in the Gynoverse
Review: If you think that giving this book one star is harsh you obviously have not read it.
It is much worse than Clan of the Cave Bear: sure that book was full of silly feminism, but it was at least readable. In The Valley of Horses, Auel revs up the feminism somewhere between hyper and supra. The first hundred or so pages are okay. If you like Clan of the Cave Bear you will like this section. In truth I didn't get past page 250. The manslut who just can't find 'true love' was way too much. Sometimes I think feminist should have to put locks on books that can only be opened if the user has the correct amount of estrogen in her system.
Rating:
Summary: Cave Bear Crap
Review: Clan of the Cave Bear was good. I would recommend it. This book is pure crap, and reads like a cheap romance novel. It is boring, repetitive, and trite. Characters are stereotypical, and the dialog belongs more in a bad twentieth century soap opera. I feel compelled to get the star rating for this book lower...since it is listed as a 4!!!
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