Rating: 
Summary: A great book for such a long wait
Review: I have been waiting for this book for years and now that it s out I finished it in one day! It's great Ayla and Jondalar are finally home and they make wonderful friends despite ayla's background. Forget about the book being long it has great desciptions and the interaction between all 80+ characters is simplay amazing. I think Auel has outdone herself with this one. A definate must have for anyone interested in historical fiction or the Ice age.
Rating: 
Summary: mildly compelling book; something for everyone.
Review: This story is a continuation of the saga of Ayla and Jondalar. If you have forgotten the last books, never fear, every past event and vignette is told (and retold) often. This book has something for everyone but is based on the drama of prehistoric humans trying to eke out a living by merely hunting and gathering. Interspersed with this are lectures/discussions on society, early cooking methods, herbology, abortion(!), mythology, racism, more racism, mating rituals, mysticism and anthropology. Every few pages there are also endless introductions as Ayla meets the Zelandonii. And, of course, just when the reader is about to be lost from the umpteenth repetition of the phrase, "Ninth cave of the Zelandonii", Ayla and Jondalar escape the crowds of Zelandonii, go off on their own, and engage in the steamy romance that has made them famous, and made these books unsuitable for children.
The actual plot does not progress much other than Ayla trying to settle into Zelandonii society, mating with Jondalar, and having her baby, Jonayla.
Rating: 
Summary: It's about time!
Review: After over a decade I'd anticipated this book and the news of its release with joy. I wasn't disappointed.I knew that Alya would have some trouble being accepted by all of Jondalar's people, I also knew that eventually she would be accepted because of her skills as a healer and spiritual leader. I am now anticipating the 6th and final book in the series and wonder how long that one will take.
Rating: 
Summary: The mammoths mate again
Review: Once again, Jean Auel's gigantic sprawling saga of Ayla (proving that there were preppies in the Stone Age)staggers to its' feet and lurches forward. The problem is, it lurches forward for something like 700 pages. Ayla has journeyed with Jondalar (her mate) home to his people. All of them have names like Marona, Farona, and my Sharona (sorry about that) and they mostly welcome her. Ayla goes about her usual tall blond medicine woman persona (it's catching) while sharing pleasures with Jondalar, and being the very best cave person she possibly can be. All the while she is tormented that her new family may discover her Neanderthal heritage and tragic past. Let us leave the neolithic Martha Stewart to her pleasures and reread Diana Gabaldon. Forget it.
Rating: 
Summary: Satisfying read ... until the last 1/4
Review: Despite the long wait for Auel's new book, the beginning of Shelters of Stone meshes perfectly with Plains of Passage and the rest of the series. Sadly, the "voice" slips towards the end of the book, and the last portion is just a setup for the next book. I wouldn't recommend this to someone who hasn't read the rest of the series, but you won't need to re-read the whole story before tackling this enormous book (maybe just look over the last chapter of Plains to remember where it ended). Auel peppers the novel with reminders of what went on in the previous books (helpful, but a little annoying if you've just read the others in a marathon session, which I had...), and (thank goodness) she included a list of names at the end - I think it's the most characters she's had yet! On the whole, fans will want to have a look at this new chapter in Ayla's life, repetition and all, but try to get it from a public library first.
Rating:
Summary: The Shelters of Stone
Review: This book is quite possibly the best of the series. Ayla finally meets the ALnzadonii, Jondalar's kin, but can they accept this stragne woman and her even stranger animal friends? What will she do to their structured and traditional society? Will they finally be able to get this Matrimonial sorted out? A beautiful book, full of contrasting and realistic characters and settings.
Rating:
Summary: Quite good but not like the others.
Review: This is the fifth book in the "Earth's Children" series of books by Jean Auel with the first two of these being the best by far i.e "Clan of the Cave Bear" and "Valley of Horses". It continues the story as Jondalar and Ayla decide to journey back to his home a good year's trip away. Considering that it's a trip from what is now Russia to France its a considerable distance. Ayla is concerned his people will not take kindly to her but she quickly wins over some especially Jondalar's sister, mother and the zelandonii who sees something special in her (no surprise there). The book is quite slow to get going and doesn't have the pace or fascination of the first two or the emotional depth of the "The Mammoth Hunters" or "Plains of Passage". It isn't bad however and the author does not appear to have run out of ideas like some do when it comes to a waning of the initial creative impulse so often seen in other series, e.g. Diana Gabaldon. The book does lack a bit of drive and joy though, some scenes are repetitive and without real passion and the people can sometimes seem one dimensional which they weren't in the earlier books. Nonetheless quite good.
Rating:
Summary: Prelude to Book 6
Review: I got interested in this series by accident. I rented 'The Mammoth Hunters' from an audio book rental place a few years ago. I listened to the book and I was hooked. I have purchased the entire series that Jean Auel has written so far. It is a 6 book series, but only 5 books have been written so far. This is the 5th. This book does not come up to the level of story telling that the previous books did.
* It is important to read the previous 4 books to understand some of the things mentioned in this book.
* The author has included more of the recent discoveries about cave society in her book at the expense of the story itself.
* Unlike previous books in this series, the author raises many questions in this book which she leaves unanswered.
* I feel that this book is not complete. It is only a prelude to the final book in this series. I fell that this book is worth buying. But only if you are a fan who has read the previous 4 books and are intending on buying the final book when it comes out.
Rating:
Summary: Cave people soap opera
Review: I have never seen so much padding in a book, ever. It is worse than General Hospital that my mother watched for so many years. My feeling is that chapters were given to hired writers while Jean Auel was on vacation and the writers weren't very good. I think Jean's readers deserve something much better. Carol
Rating:
Summary: Monotonous and Inaccurate
Review: I loved Clan of the Cave Bear, but after that, each book in the series got worse. Auel has taken what could have been a great prehistoric fiction series and turned it into soft-core erotica. While reading the book, I couldn't help but get the impression that she spent more effort on the sex scenes than on the culture of the Zelandonii. The Zelandonii culture is virtually identical to all other Cro-Magnon cultures encountered throughout the series. I highly doubt that all prehistoric humans had the same ideals and worshipped the same deity in the real world, yet Auel paints them that way. I get the feeling that the culture of the people in these books represents Auel's ideals of a perfect world, with no warfare, no religious hatred, and no male dominance. And while these are among the ugliest aspects of human nature, denial of their existence does not make for an interesting or accurate novel. The characters are shallow- Jondalar is portrayed as nothing more than a sex object, Ayla is still completely unaware of herself, and the entire culture is encased in an extremely unrealistic sexual innocence that simply enhances the sex scenes- does anybody really think they were unaware of the connection between sex and childbirth? The only character in the novel with any depth is Brukeval, but even then it's not much. I enjoyed the setting of the novel though, and will probably get the next one, as books set in this time period are hard to come by. Hopefully, the next book will be more like Clan of the Cave Bear.
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