Rating: 
Summary: Wondrous and compelling...
Review: If you're looking for a story that has beauty and depth, excitement and emotion, as well as the strength of character that so many books lack, than this one is for you. Free of the commen stereotypes that plague so large of percentage of modern literature, this book has everything going for it. The writing is excellent, the characters believable, and the plot exciting. The story centers around five year old Ayla, a human being, who, after losing her family to a natural disaster, is reluctantly taken in by the Neanderthal Clan, and slowly nursed back to health. As Ayla grows older, many members of the Clan are increasingly disturbed by her strange tendancies and quirks, which rise to the surface no matter how hard she tries to be a proper clan female, and the question is; can Ayla conform to her new suroundings, and, more importantly, does she want to? This is an excellent book that will make you laugh, cry, and, for a short time, feel as if you too live in prehistoric Europe. This book has some disturbing subject matter, including a violent and graphic rape scene, so I have to say I wouldn't recomend this book or it's sequels to anyone younger than sixteen or seventeen.
Rating:
Summary: An All-Time Favorite Of Mine
Review: This was a book that I just got lost in. As a young girl, it was my introduction to primitive life and I found it fascinating. It has stayed with me all these years so I have to count it as an all-time favorite even though I really don't know how factually correct it was.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Story
Review: After having this book in my bookshelf for years I finally decided to give it a go. After struggling thru the first 50 or so pages I was all of a sudden thrust into a book that I have enjoyed so much. When young Ayla loses the only family she ever know to the earthquakes she is thrust into a world she is not use to. As she wanders the vast land trying to find someone to hopefully be there for her. Along the way Ayla has started to fall ill and needs help. As The Clan of The Cave Bear heads off to find a new cave, along the long journey Iza finds a young child. A child that doesn't look like her people, but is still in need of care. She takes Ayla with her in hopes that Ayla will feel better and be on her way. Iza doesn't expect that this child could be the lucky one who will change people. After agreeing to allow Ayla to live with Clan Ayla is met with some troubles with the other people of the Clan because she doesn't look them and she isn't one of them. But as time goes on she proves to people that she can be like them. She has many mishaps with the people in the Clan that make them still belive she isn't one of them, but still they let her stay with them. Ayla has to adjust to staying a woman of the Clan and that means being submissive to the men of the Clan and learning many new things along the way. The charactors in this book grow on you and you don't want to leave them for anything you want to be there to see how they grow and what they learn. This is a great book and I can't wait to read the rest of them.
Rating:
Summary: Adventuresome and Exciting!
Review: This is one of the most different books of a series that I have ever read before and I truly LOVED it! Clan of the Cave Bear is action-packed,and very engrossing all the way through from beginning to end. The story centers around the little girl, Ayla, who loses her family in an earthquake and is left alone all by herself at 5 years old trying to survive. She becomes ill and survival becomes almost impossible. Finally, she sees a cave, and sees a
cave lion. She gets away, but then passes out unconscious. The Clan is hunting and they see her. Yet, most of them don't want to help her because she is not one of "THEM," she is born to the "OTHERS." However, Iza, a member of the clan has a heart and takes her with them, whether the other members like it or not. She helps Ayla to get back on her feet, but they wonder where she comes from. The Clan about has to take her in, against many of their wishes with the exception of Iza, who has always loved her. The Clan adopted her a ways into the story, but not without hatred by some. Especially Broud. Ayla learns Clan ways of living. Women are subserbviant to men, ALWAYS. Yet Ayla at times rebels and gets many punishments along the way. Broud, is the one who most of all, HATES Ayla with a passion and is always making constant trouble for her. Ayla does learn many skills along the way in this first book of the series so that she can survive on her own. don't wish to tell too much here in the review though, as to ruin the story for some of you who are looking to read the book. As you read along you will see how the whole story ties in together with the basic facts I mentioned above.
Rating:
Summary: Simply AMAZING and thought provoking
Review: I loved this book from the very beginning all the way to the very end. I laughed and cried and got mad and then recovered and then did the emotions all over again. A good read is a book that allows the reader to learn (as I definitely did about prehistoric times and about botany) and also to love the characters like Creb, Iza, and of course the main character Alya. To also get mad when things aren't going for the character's we love and to cry when they go so wrong that we feel for it too our hearts. This is the best book I have read and I am serious. I am already on page 200 of the next book to read after this one. "The Valley of the Horses". I love it also and can't wait to see what is going to happen next! What a wonderful series! See ya on this review board on the current book when I am finished!
:)
Rating:
Summary: Great. Really Great.
Review: I really liked this book, I have always been interested in early man, and I think this book sheds new light on the way it could of been back then. I found this book facinating, and I think that it was a wonderful experence.Although she didn't have any facts she still did a good job of filling in those empty spaces.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful
Review: Now I'm that kind of a person who usually goes against the stream and rates a 5-star rated book with 1 star. But despite this fact, I'm rating this book 4 stars, which happens very rarely (unless you're talking about Tolkien, of course). The book has some small problems. Auel does burden the reader with lots and lots of unuseful (for me, at least) information. Sometimes, her narrative stops and gives way to a 4 page lecture on different plants and stuff. Sometimes Auel gets too carried away and her plot gets a little strange. So in order to read this book and enjoy it, you have to know how to skim through books. When you see a plant lecture coming, just skip it and go on. If you take these lectures out, you will get a very gripping book. I must admit that the author had the needed effect on me. When I'm supposed to be nervous, I was nervous, and when something interesting and important was going on, I just couldn't tear myself off the book. Most of these low-star ratings are from people who can't skim through boring material. Believe me, I couldn't do it before, and that's why I hate so many books which don't deserve it. Try reading it at least, if you get through the first 100 pages and you still don't like, then don't try going further - it won't help.
Rating: 
Summary: Tripe, and not very good tripe at that
Review: lets see, young blue eyed, pretty and in every way superior CroMagnon Ayla manages to transcend her brutish, Neanderthal counterparts and invent fire, discover the cause of pregnancy, invent the wheel, and all with some magical process of thought that the author just bestows upon her. Silly, fatuous and and a literay hash.
Rating:
Summary: Profoundly readable....
Review: For years, various friends have suggested I might enjoy reading THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR, and finally this summer I did. Auel's tale is speculative. Recent discoveries suggest it may contain some inaccuracies (the Black Sea may not have been salty as Auel suggests), however other findings support her ideas. Auel made good use of her knowledge of medicinal herbs (although some of plants she names are native to North America not Europe where the action takes place). Her use of the extant knowledge of the fossil record, as well as geological and climatic information is excellent. However, her allusions to the sexual practices of traditional people appears to draw heavily on the work of Margaret Mead whose research on the sex lives of adolescent Samoans has been challenged (humans may be too jealous to have ever practiced "free love"). Auel's great gift to the reader is that she enables him to "see" life as it might have been lived by our ancestor(s) during the last Ice Age. Was it nasty, short and brutish as the 18th Century philosopher suggested, or was it one long sojourn in the wilderness where one could find all the food, medicine and other goods required to sustain a reasonably happy life? Imagine being able to see the vast array of stars that make up the Milky Way. There are only a few places left in the Western United States where one can see the stars without atmospheric pollution. How stupendous it must have been to sit on a hillside at night looking at the heavens when the only light came from the moon, the stars, and a campfire. Is it no wonder our ancestors worshiped the natural world? On the other hand, camping out all winter in a cave has it's downside. Depending on your location relative to the cave entrance you might be pretty damp and cold. But you could wrap yourself in warm furs and campfires would cheer you. Not knowing when the cold would end as food supplies dwindled would be frightening. Viewing a grazing herd of Aurochs or Mastodons must have been awesome. A first hand encounter with a cave lion would be terrifying. Auel doesn't mention the clan of the cave bear by name, but the reader senses they are Neanderthals, and that the "others" are what we call 'modern' humans. Auel's contrast between the traditional people who relied on memory for survival versus the new people who could think and reason and viewed the world as "cause and effect" is insightful and profound. But what if the world isn't really cause and effect. What if cause and effect are merely an explanatory principle converted into a religion of sorts. Those who believe in the metaphor may doomed to the Neanderthals' destiny - extinction.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read!
Review: I had nearly forgotten about this book, read years ago, when someone told me that book 5, "Shelters of Stone" came out. I just read it, also an excellent read! It brought a nice circle to the story and was very well written. Once you meet this character you wont ever really forget her. I recommend the whole series. You can't help but to love the main character, Ayla, and picking up Auel's newest book, which brings the earlier books into a nice circle, brought back all the memories of this one and the whole series. (Reading these in order will put all the characters and relationships into perspective.) This book is a can't miss, and I'd recommend the whole series just to get to book 5!
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