Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Thanks, Jean Auel, thanks a lot. No, really, I love having my loyalty and expectations dumped upon from a great height. I should have known what was coming, given the feeble effort you made in The Shelters of Stone. To quote what I said then, 'This must be the longest I have ever waited for the next book in a series. I bought the first one in 1984 when I left home for university, got absolutely hooked and avidly read them as they appeared, including The Plains of Passage, which was the last one in 1990. If I have to wait another twelve years for the next book in the series, I'll be nearly fifty and will have spent thirty years on this story. So was it worth it and will I be anticipating the next book as eagerly? I'm not so sure. Oh, I'll read it - I have grown very fond of the heroine, but I found this book somewhat of a letdown. It mostly feels like scene-setting for the next book, and half the content seems to be retelling of the four books before (something that was already starting to irritate in The Plains of Passage, together with the too-dry lectures on flora, fauna and geography). Yes, the new people Ayla lives with need to know about her life, but it could have been done better. Jean Auel should really trust her readers more to know what has already happened - after all, we have had twelve years to read the story again and again. Compared to the scope of the plot in the earlier books, this is a bit feeble. But I still want to know how it all ends. Meet you all at my fiftieth birthday party.' Well, I only had to wait nine years and not twelve, but I wish the book had never come. This reads like bad fanfic, without the inadvertently funny bits. Everything I criticized about the last book she did again, only more so. It almost felt like she couldn't remember her own books and had to put in the constant repetition of background facts to remind herself, badly pasting together filing cards from her worldbuilding box. The dialogue is stilted, the people are indistinguishable cardboard cut-outs, and nothing happens. In a bad way. I mean, I was about two pages in when I first said 'This is terrible'. There is nothing left of the promise of the first four books. Nothing. I'm off to cry in a corner, and then I'll go pretend I never read the last two. I want my money back, and the last 21 years. Edited to add: I put this book on the charity table of my local supermarket, with a home-made warning label saying 'This book sucks - read at own risk'.