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  • The Land of Painted Caves

  • Earth's Children, Book 6
  • By: Jean M Auel
  • Narrated by: Rowena Cooper
  • Length: 29 hrs and 57 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (546 ratings)
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The Land of Painted Caves cover art

The Land of Painted Caves

By: Jean M Auel
Narrated by: Rowena Cooper
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Summary

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.

©2011 Jean M Auel (P)2011 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

What listeners say about The Land of Painted Caves

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Oh, dear.

I wanted to like this book, I really did but it's almost as if, in the intervening years, Ms Auel has forgotten how to write. Golly, she's done her research, but that doesn't make for a good story. In this book Ayla visits a lot of caves and I mean a lot. All of which are described in loving detail on one occasion the same cave is described twice. Now, I like a good cave with the best of them, but page after page of bleedin' caves gets a little tedious. And the characters - I'm not sure where to start but they are written in a strangely childlike way. I know they are a prehistoric culture but they're still people, grown up people who speak like adults. As for Ayla and Jondalar, at least in this book we are spared the endless paragraphs of bonking, which quite frankly bored me rigid (for want of a better word) in the previous books. However, you'll be pleased to know Ayla is as completely marvelous as ever and she still has an odd accent, which you will be told about on what seems like every page. Dim but nice Jondalar on the other hand, at one point, does something so completely out of the blue that it screams 'plot contrivance' at you so loud that you'll be deaf for a week. On another note , do you remember 'The Mother's Song' in 'The Shelters of Stone'? Well you'll get to hear it again in this book. In fact you'll hear it many, many, many times until, eventually, you'll hear it in your dreams. I know I've been flippant, but I was really disappointed with this book. Set aside Rowena Cooper's mispronunciations and slightly school ma'amish tone throughout, no one could have made this book sound good. I've loved this series and for this to be the last one, well what a shame to go out on such a bum note.

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30 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

so so disappointing

I'm afraid I have to agree with Raymond, Ingrid and Dawn. This book is so unbelievably bad that it is difficult to believe that Jean M Auel wrote it at all. The repetition is annoying to say the least. The reminding us of every detail/reason for something ten times over makes you feel retarded. The obsessive attention to detail for things which are so similar to what was explained the page before is tedious to the extreme. If I wrote something this bad I would have no hope whatsoever of getting an agent or editor to go beyond the first chapter. Nothing 'interesting' really happens in the book, it just wanders around in circles going nowhere. I had to read it because I had so loved the others but if there were another sequel I'd give it a skip.

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17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Dawn

I don't normally write a review for these things but this book is so bad I felt that I had to. I have previously read all the other books in this series and had enjoyed them and so it was with eager anticipation that I downloaded the book and settled down to listen and how disappointed I have been. I don't know whether it is a function of listening rather than reading but I have found this book to be repetitative to the point of nausea, unnecessarily long and patronising as the Author doesn't seem to feel that we can remember a fact from one Chapter to another.

I cannot believe that anyone would want to listen ad nauseaum to a description of one painted cave let alone the five or six caves described in minute detail in this book.


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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Land of the Painted Caves

After the sucess of the first 3 books Jean Auel seems to think that writing books with absolutely no storyline is sufficient. Seldom have I been driven to complete boredom but how this novel ever got published is beyond my comprehension, after 7 hours I feel as if I am a 5 year old listening to a narration of teaching methods. I feel sorry for anyone who purchased this novel with the hope of being entertained.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

The land of painted caves

I've been a major fan of Jean M Auel since her first book and have for each book waited and waited for the next. Eventhough the other books in the series got more and more boring they at least had a story to tell. This one simply takes the price of the most boring book without a story. I can only agree with those who think this is the most boring book ever. It's not even worth 1 star I had to give one to be able to write the review. I normally doesn't write reviews but I've to warn others against using money on such a boring book with so many repetitions from former books and such a weak story. How on earth can it take so many years to write a book with so little content.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Very disappointing

Can this really be the same author that wrote Clan of the Cave Bear? I can't believe it. Without doubt, this is the most boring book I have ever read. One star is the lowest I cold give or it would have none. So repetetive. Of course, if you want to listen to hour after hour of descriptions of the paintings on cave walls, then you MAY find this acceptable.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

So Bad!

I can't believe Jean Auel wrote this book. Long awaited but very very disapointing. I listend to this book but wished I had read it instead. I least I could have jumped the 'Mothers Song' 20 or 30 times and not listen to repetitive cave descriptions. If Jean Auel did write this book she must really need the money.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

A dreadful end to a brilliant series

I seem to have been reading this series for most of my life, and have been less and less impressed as each one came out. I have to say that this is without doubt the worst book of the lot and really not worth the time or the money.

Nothing really happens in the story, which makes it a difficult and dreary read, and even the description is repetitive and uninteresting. For the end of a series which was so brilliant and captured the imagination so well in its early books, it is very sad for it to end with such a badly written and unbelieveable way.

The reader did very well indeed, had a nice voice and tone, and I enjoyed listening to her - the fact that even such a good narrator couldn't make the book enjoyable really says something about how awful it is.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Oh

What a shame the last book in the series is so poor. No real story, the caves are well documented but it is so repetitive. If you have read any of the previous books it becomes very irritating, the only thing in its favour is there are fewer descriptions of pleasures. I personally found the Aussie accent Rowena Cooper gave to Ayla annoying. If there was another in the series I wouldn't read it.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Boring books

This is one of the most boring shallow books I have ever read. Very disappointing as the previous books in this series were on the whole very good. I pity the person who had to record it.

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5 people found this helpful