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[polly_mer]

I am now about 50 pages from the end and I will finish tonight.

Even if I had read this thread, I wouldn't have had enough warning because of what Erictho wrote:

I had high hopes for this book --- I love brain candy, and I loved the world Auel created in the first books (although the fifth was kinda boring in large chunks). This one needed a strong editor's hand or a close friend who would have sent it back with a firm "revise and resubmit" rather than sending it out in to the world to annoy its readers who deserved better.

Sure, Auel doesn't write great literature.  Yes, much of the science is bad.  Yes, the moral messages are applied with a 2x4.  But, the other books had plot and some interest in "what will happen next" and yeah, the sex.  I read The Mammoth Hunters at an impressionable age and it remains my favorite.

However, this book only intermittently has plot, any plot.  Look, it's the phone book.  Ha, ha, you don't need to know any of those names because now it's just the five of us.  Fooled you for all those pages.  Now we're on the road repeating the stories of the first five books until it's time to sing that damn mother song and then eat.  Oops, looks like some plot now about how families with a child adjust--ha ha, we're onto a new section of the book a couple years later in a different geographic setting.  Say, did I mention how hard being a mother and having a calling is?  Especially when you have an accent and animals?  Never mind.  Look, it's a cave, but no one knows why it's like that or what it means, but it's sacred.  Sacred, I say!  Out of the blue, it's a fight!  Ha, ha, let's sing the mother song again.  Say, did you know that it's tough to be a mother with a calling, an accent, and animals?  Sex, sure, but make it quick.  Ok, it's a cave!

[toothpaste]

I was stuck in the public library last week with my daughter who would not stop coloring. So I picked this book up off the new book shelves to browse (I knew I was not going to check it out, because it's "new" and therefore has a one-week return date on it). I read part of the first chapter. It was actually interesting and moderately well written. It made me want to read beyond the first few pages.

I think that this thread put my expectations so low that I was impressed that I was not reading a phone book.

[bioteacher]

If, as I suspect, you have not read any of the other books in the series, you should get it and read it. Perhaps having no expectations will permit you to enjoy the "Plot, what plot?" writing. Of course, after you do this experiment, report back here.

But for your own enjoyment, I suggest just checking out the 1st three books from the library and stopping after those. Read a wikipedia recap if you need to know what you "missed."

[toothpaste]

I've read all the others in years past, starting when I was 12.