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Book Review of The Land of Painted Caves (Earth's Children®)

The Land of Painted Caves (Earth's Children®)
rhyta avatar reviewed on + 10 more book reviews


A very sad ending to a well-loved series. I cannot recommend it for anyone who had any affection for the earlier books in the series.

This book entails Ayla's training to be a zeladoni and her trip to numerous caves as part of her training. The time spent away from her family causes problems and she has a vision that will forever alter the way her people (the Zelandoni) relate to each other.

There is too much repetition by the author; plot from the previous 5 books(part 1), Ayla's accent is strange, Jondalar's blue eyes, the mother's song and of course the caves (part 2). Part 3 is the newer material but with a recycled ending and numerous threads left dangling. The changes in major characters are not for the better and leaves one wondering if Auel had just decided to end it however she could.

Audio details...I enjoyed the first 4 books and have read them numerous times. I decided to listen to them this time around as I led up to book 6. I was not so happy to find that Ayla had developed a transylvanian accent in book 5 and 6. Made it even more difficult to listen to! Only advantage to the audio, I could skip multiple renditions of the Mother's Song!