Wait ... what?

The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Oooooookay, then.

So, I pretty much speed-read through Land of Painted Caves to see how the story finishes. You know, since is reportedly the final book in the Earth's Children series. Pretty much, skip all the really long descriptions of caves and you can finish the book in a few hours. My impression? Let me say this, how would you feel if J.K. Rowling suddenly decided to stop writing Harry Potter after Half-Blood Prince? Sorry, no final battle for you. No knowing if Ron and Hermione ever get together, if Voldemort is ever defeated, or even if Harry lives to turn 17. Sorry folks. JKR has taken her millions and headed to Aruba and we don't get the end of the story.

That's essentially what this book is. It's not winding down the story. Instead, it only opened several new plotlines, fails to answer some of the really big questions about old plots that have dangled like carrots for years and recycles one plot in a way that it makes the end of Slayers Evolution-R look like the most original piece of media ever. I do give the characters credit for realizing this is the same plot take two, and because the first plot point happened, it alluded to this possibly happening again.

The thing is that overall, this wasn't a bad book. Oh yes, I rolled my eyes at all the mentions of how perfect Jondalar and Ayla are. To their credit, their flaws do show up. What's not to the book's credit is how suddenly Jean M. Auel hits the brakes, swings the car into the opposing turn lane, and proceeds to spectacularly run over them in order to set up the end of the book.

( In which I rant about a major plot at the end and discuss R-rated stuff )