Rating: 
Summary: A good book, but not as good as the earlier ones
Review: I don't think Ms. Auel had her heart in this one. I hate to admit it, but there were times I "skimmed" several paragraphs (or even pages) because the detailing of the landscape got to be a bit much.Let me say, though, that I can't overemphasize how good her first works were (although even in Mammoth Hunters, she started to feel like she was getting bored.) Clan of the Cave Bear and The Valley of Horses are without peer in their category, that catagory being "books worth reading." My recommendation: read CCV and see if you aren't hooked. If you are (you will be), you'll enjoy the followup books, even with their few flaws.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm so glad I'm not the only one desperate for the next book
Review: Whew! I just read 20+ reviews and I am glad to see that so many other people love Auel's books as much as I do. But I'm even gladder to know that others feel as maniacal about the 5th book as I do. It's just unbelieveable how long it is taking. While we wait, at least there are a few other series to get lost in. I suggest Robert Jordan, Katharine Kerr, and Charles de Lint. I am looking for more prehistoric novels, but there aren't very many, and none of them are as well detailed as Auel's. However She Who Remebers, and Mother Earth, Father Sky are very enjoyable. Anyway, Hang in there everybody, THE FIFTH BOOK HAS TO COME OUT EVENTUALLY!!!!!!!.....right?
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: What a pefect set of books to read on a lazy weekend . I read them once a year and get caught up in the adventure everytime .Can't wait for the next one.I hope she dosen't make us wait to much longer .
Rating:
Summary: Dear Jean,
Review: Well when we gonna get the next book dear? We-your faithful fans-have been patiently waiting for the final(?) book for years- a decade even. Love the books, but I am really dying to see the outcome of Ayla. I envision her as the mother of ancient witchcraft.
Rating:
Summary: Long, but great!! Read the first 3!! You'll love them all!
Review: I loved all 4 of these books!!! I have been waiting 12 years for the 5th book to come out and have in the mean-time reread them over and over, collected first addition copies and created an online discussion group to talk about them, the Summer Meetings that other fans are starting in different regions, and other book related aspects of life, including cooking like the characters in the books!!! I recomend for EVERYONE to read them, expesially young women! I read them at the age of 13 and Ayla gives a great example of what a strong independant woman is!!
Rating:
Summary: Definately the best series ever written!
Review: I am a fifteen year old reader, and I love Auel! Though my English teacher is worried that the book is too graphic for a fifteen year old, I disagree! What is there in this book that you don't learn from a health text book? Sure Ayla And Jondalar have sex in every other chapter, but what's wrong with that? I didn't appreciate the comment that the reader from Mumbai made! Clan of the Cave Bear was a good book, yes, but the rest weren't just prehistoric survival guides! Her characters are belevable, and who knows someone like Ayla could have existed, she could have invented the thread puller, or Jondalar the spear-thrower. There's something different about the way Auel writes. She doesn't try to fit into any catagory. She's "in a class all by herself." Since I first read Clan if the Cave Bear when I was fourteen, I was hooked! I've read the series twice now, and am patiently waiting for the next book to come out! Mrs. Auel, if you're out there, please release it! you have many adoring fans waiting to find out what happens to Ayla and Jondalar!
Rating: 
Summary: The story line is wonderful, but the sex was too graphic.
Review: I thought the characters in the story were very personable, and the whole series has a wonderful and believable plot. However, the depictions of sexual encounters leave absolutely NOTHING to the imagination, and lowers the book to the level of the trashy romance novel. If it weren't so shockingly explicit, I would gladly recommend it to anyone as quality literature.
Rating:
Summary: What a crowd pleaser.
Review: I am a seventeen year old with a lust for prehistory. I can't get enough. I love details of plants, animals and the culture of the humans and there clans. I really like Jondalare. He understands Ayla so much it's almost frightening. He is warm are caring. He is patient with Ayla and her questions about the world around her. He is like a lover and a father all in one. If you read and concentrate hard enough, you can see every man who has ever lived in this guy. It's exellent how Auel portays this. I am looking forward to her fifth novel. I have been waiting patiantly for about a year now, and still I can't find this book. Is there actually one out there or am I just dreaming? Anyway, I liked the book and look forward to the next one.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely outstandingly beautiful.
Review: I have read the series many times over and found them inspirational and healing in relationships with people around me, I have used her books to help people that were in need of healing themselves as well and always with success. One can get what ever you want out of it I am sure, just like the Bible, but if you look deep then one can see that not only there is a lot of history there but also tremendous lessons on relatonships. I should be so fortunate to meet my soul mate.( Am still waiting) I am looking forward to the next book as well.
Rating:
Summary: A Bit of a Letdown for Auel Fans
Review: First, a quick explanation of my rating - 3 stars only in comparison to Auel's previous novels. Compared to books by other authors in the genre, The Plains of Passage is definitely 5 stars! Those of us who are hooked on the Earth's Children series will, of course, read every book Jean Auel produces, but in comparison to the first three books in the series, The Plains of Passage wasn't up to Auel's usual standard. Unlike other reviewers whose complaints center on the extensive plant and topography descriptions, what I found hardest to swallow was the "Ayla and Jondalar Save the Day - Again" theme than runs throughout the novel. After just their second encounter with a group of people during their journey to Jondalar's home, a "here it comes again feeling" rises up in the reader. It is a bit wearing on the most diehard Auel fan to endure 800 pages of Ayla and Jondalar coming to the rescue of yet another group of miserably backward people. Another large bite for readers to swallow is the presentation of Ayla and Jondalar as singular saviors of the planet. However, I'm sure most readers, no matter how caught up in the saga of Ayla and Jondalar, are able none-the-less to keep in mind that the many innovations and inventions she and he discover were not their unique and singular developments. Their experiences and discoveries were repeated endlessly by many other people of their time. After all, had the fate of humanity depended on only one person discovering the processes and uses of fire, sewing needles, various weapons, etc., the human race would not now be enjoying such luxuries as books by Jean Auel! But in spite of my complaints, I have read (and reread) all the books in Auel's series, and, with her many fans, am eagerly awaiting her next novel (a copy of which I plan to own the very day it hits bookstore shelves!).
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