Finished: The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M Auel

This is the 6th and last book of this (AWESOME) series. I was so excited to finally get it. I am only about a chapter in, but it's already got me hooked.

I read some reviews for this book and a lot of people didn't like it. I am going to form my own opinion though. I have been waiting for this book for a long time.

Finished!: After reading the book (a lot of which I skipped through*) I was dissapointed. It was nice that the series ended, but it was not very thrilling. I kept hoping for something suspensful to happen, but it was pretty dull. The end of the book really got me angry. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I will be brief. Ayla's husband really turns into a jerk. I could not believe it. Other than that though, it was a pretty tame book.

* The reason I skipped through a lot if it was because;
1. There was a lot of telling what happened in the last 5 books. Since I already knew what happened, I really didn't need to be reminded of it (over and over and over)

2. The descriptions of things just got too long and drawn out. I really don't need a paragraph on how a blade of grass looks.

Here's the synopsis:
Thirty thousand years in the making and 31 years in the writing, Auel's sixth and final volume in the Earth's Children series (The Clan of the Cave Bear; etc.) finds Cro-Magnon Ayla; her mate, Jondalar; and their infant daughter, Jonayla, settling in with the clan of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonaii. Animal whisperer and medicine woman Ayla is an acolyte in training to become a full-fledged Zelandoni (shaman) of the clan, but all is not rosy in this Ice Age setting; there are wild animals to face and earthquakes to survive, as well as a hunter named Balderan, who has targeted Ayla for death, and a potential cave-wrecker named Marona. While gazing on an elaborate cave painting (presumably, the Lascaux caverns in France), Ayla has an epiphany and invents the concept of art appreciation, and after she overdoses on a hallucinogenic root, Ayla and Jondalar come to understand how much they mean to one another, thus giving birth to another concept—monogamy.

Here is my previous blog post with the other 5 books: http://glueybluey-bookblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/recently-re-read-earth-children-series.html