The Shelters of Stone
Ratings8
Average rating3.3
15
Ratings8
Average rating3.3
The Shelters of Stone opens as Ayla and Jondalar, along with their animal friends, Wolf, Whinney, and Racer, complete their epic journey across Europe and are greeted by Jondalar's people: the Zelandonii. The people of the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii fascinate Ayla. Their clothes, customs, artifacts, even their homes formed in great cliffs of vertical limestone are a source of wonder to her. And in the woman Zelandoni, the spiritual leader of the Ninth Cave (and the one who initiated Jondalar into the Gift of Pleasure), she meets a fellow healer with whom to share her knowledge and skills. But as Ayla and Jondalar prepare for the formal mating at the Summer Meeting, there are difficulties. Not all the Zelandonii are welcoming. Some fear Ayla's unfamiliar ways and abhor her relationship with those they call flatheads and she calls Clan. Some even oppose her mating with Jondalar, and make their displeasure known. Ayla has to call on all her skills, intelligence, knowledge, and instincts to find her way in this complicated society, to prepare for the birth of her child, and to decide whether she will accept new challenges and play a significant role in the destiny of the Zelandonii. Jean Auel is at her very best in this superbly textured creation of a prehistoric society. The Shelters of Stone is a sweeping story of love and danger, with all the wonderful detail based on meticulous research that makes her novels unique. It is a triumphant continuation of the Earth's Children saga that began with The Clan of the Cave Bear. And it includes an amazing rhythmic poem that describes the birth of Earth's Children and plays its own role in the narrative of The Shelters of Stone.
Reviews with the most likes.
I'll be honest, this wasn't nearly as good as the rest of the series has been. The best parts of this book were that Ayla and Jondalar were finally mated, and that Ayla had her daughter. Other than that, it was just ok.
I didn't like this book quite as much as I was hoping to. I guess my main complaints are that Ayla just seems a little too, perfect? Too super-human. Reading through the book, I almost get the impression the story is as much about what a wonder Ayla is than about the life and times back then. I know that's probably somewhat the point, because whenever Ayla tells her story to someone new they rarely believe her, but I think the narrative would seem a bit more believable if Ayla was more like your every day person like all the rest of us, just trying to survive in the circumstances. Her exceptional beauty and perfect body take away from the otherwise uniqueness of the series. That's just my opinion though.
Apart from that, I do still enjoy the different setting and getting a glimpse into what life was probably like back then. I'm still planning to finish off the series.
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Featured Series
6 primary booksEarth's Children is a 12-book series with 12 primary works first released in 1980 with contributions by Jean M. Auel and Jacques Martinache.
