Monday 2 May 2011

FICTION REVIEW: Earths Children 6: The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M Auel

Release Date: 29/03/11

SYNOPSIS:

THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES concludes the story of Ayla, her mate Jondalar, and their little daughter, Jonayla, taking readers on a journey of discovery and adventure as Ayla struggles to find a balance between her duties as a new mother and her training to become a Zelandoni - one of the Ninth Cave community's spiritual leaders and healers. Once again, Jean Auel combines her brilliant narrative skills and appealing characters with a remarkable re-creation of the way life was lived thousands of years ago, rendering the terrain, dwelling places, longings, beliefs, creativity and daily lives of Ice Age Europeans as real to the reader as today's news.


REVIEW:

Fans of Jean’s writing have been waiting years, for this the sixth and final part to the epic series. It’s been a long time coming and to be honest fans have been hoping for a hell of a lot due to the delays.

So after a reread of the other titles prior to starting it I was all ready to roll and looked forward to a few hours of reading pleasure. What I got however was far from this, in fact I’d even go so far as to think that Dante had a new circle of hell added just for this title. The book doesn’t really go anywhere, the characters fail to grow and the author believes in repeating a number of things numerous times to ram it down the reader’s throat. It is sadly disappointing and when you add that this is more filler than arc I’d be surprised if it would even float.

Finally, to put the icing on this cake a disjointed writing style due to either the editing or the authors writing at various times, lack of pace as well as a failing in prose and in all its been a real let down. If you have to read this title then borrow it from your local library or wait for paperback as otherwise this is going to be a very costly item just to keep the shelves looking nice.

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