Seeing how it's been over a decade since I first read the first book of this series, it's really about time I finish it. I read books 1-5 once before doing these blog reviews years ago, but my memories had been muddled. So when last year I got the opportunity to buy all books for cheap just to give them one last conclusive read, I jumped on the occasion. My opinions so far? The first book is great, the second okay, anything after that bad. But now that we're at the last installment in Earth's Children, let's see how things go. Does Auel stick the landing, or is it as bad as books three to five? Let's find out. Spoilers ahead.
Plot: Ayla is a zelandoni in training and because of that loses out on contact with Jondalar, which drives him jealous. She visits a ton of caves and travels to the spirit world twice to get into contact with the Mother. In the end she almost dies due to a powerful drug, but she ultimately survives and reconciles with her family.
Wow. Just, what a huge disappointment. I thought the past few books were bad, but this is pretty much the worst one out of the bunch, probably on par with book three. The plot? There is none other than Ayla striving to complete her training, but even that is spread out so widely over these 800 pages that it barely feels like a plot, much like the journey to the tribe in book four.
Ayla is still a boring-as-ever Mary Sue who has only one moment in this book (heck, across the last few books honestly) where she genuinely feels "human" and not some perfect higher power in human form. Jondalar shows his worst once more (I really thought we'd left that behind in Mammoth Hunters, but apparently not). He not only cheats on Ayla with her bully while she's away training, but also nearly kills the man Ayla has sex with in order to get "revenge" on him out of jealousy. The other characters feel like they have no real depth to them. You remember Jonayla, their awfully-named child from the last book? Yeah, she barely has any impact whatsoever on the story. She hardy has a presence even. You'd really expect her to be a bigger element after her being such a big deal in the last book.
There's still those horrible sex scenes, though thankfully there's slightly less in this book than in the last ones. There's tons of repetition (both in lines of dialogue and just recounting events that happened in earlier books) and a lot of it is just Ayla travelling and doing her elandoni stuff, not much more.
When Ayla is finally "called by the Mother" and goes on her great spirit realm journey, what is the grand revelation she brings to mankind? It's literally the birds and the bees. Where babies come from. The exact information Ayla had figured out in book 1. Now it is suddenly divinely delivered to her. Can you just imagine almost dying and traveling to the spirit realm just to be told that man + woman + sex = baby. It's ridiculous. And this somehow makes Ayla complete her training.
This book is just very unsatisfying. We don't get conclusions to a ton of plot threats (what happened to the Mamutoi, the possibility of trading relationships with Clan people after Ayla and Jondalar helped two in an earlier book, what happened to Durc and Broud's Clan). Instead we're supposed to be invested in these cardboard cutout characters and the lackluster plot. I honestly wouldn't mind if there were to be a spinoff book focusing on Durc and his life at the Clan under Broud's rule, that sounds a million times more interesting than anything we got in this series after Valley of Horses.
To round things out, we end the book on a moral lesson like the reader is only eight years old. Don't be jealous and don't cheat, guys.
Just... I'm honestly at a loss for words here. I wish I had more to say other than it being dreadfully underwhelming and boring, but that's just all it is. If you were to tell me this was written by the same author as Clan of the Cave Bear, I'd legit not believe you unless I saw it myself. I recommend that if you go anywhere near this series, you check out Clan and then stop after that. I lived for years without getting to the second book (and then the rest), and honestly having all opportunities open for what could happen to Ayla after she left the Clan was better than what we canonically got. Heck, it might even make a fun fanfiction project if you have too much time to kill, to see if you can fix the later books somehow.
Not recommended in the slightest. My closing words: What the fuck, Auel.
Rating: 1/5
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