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Post by tabby on May 10, 2011 14:15:58 GMT -4
So, I finally got this from the library, and am about half-way through.
Holy God, you guys weren't lying about the repetition. And the lack of plot. And the comments about Ayla's accent. And I'm so tired of descriptions of cave paintings I'm ready to vomit. ("This is beautiful! What does it mean?" "We have no idea. But it's very sacred!")
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Post by sugarhigh on May 23, 2011 19:57:32 GMT -4
I flipped through the latest book at B&N this weekend and one scene I read was Jondolar beating up Laramar while screaming "That's my baby!!" Someone tell me he gets punished, whipped, ostracized or something for beating someone up again.
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dwanollah
Guest
May 11, 2024 3:13:17 GMT -4
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Post by dwanollah on May 23, 2011 20:41:12 GMT -4
No, but he's really really totally ashamed.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
May 11, 2024 3:13:17 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2011 16:52:17 GMT -4
Maybe she'll be too wrapped up with her spiritual journey, and this will force Jondalar to have to "share Pleasures" with some other skank.... Called it back in '07! LOL! Dwan wins! I read through the thread here first before reading LoPC and went into it with low expectations, so I kind of liked it. I skimmed over all of the cave and plant descriptions, Mother's Song, sex scenes, and descriptions of Ayla, Jondalar, and Jonaylas exceptional looks....so it took me about an hour to read the whole thing. Best part: Jondalar screaming: "HE'S MAKING MY BABY!" while rushing in to beat the tar out of Laramar. I literally LOL'ed. Best. Line. Ever.
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dwanollah
Guest
May 11, 2024 3:13:17 GMT -4
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Post by dwanollah on Oct 6, 2011 18:10:49 GMT -4
Damn. I was totes Prophetic, y'all. It's almost like I ate a magic root or something....
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Post by sugarhigh on Oct 6, 2011 20:46:37 GMT -4
No, but he's really really totally ashamed. Ugh. Honestly, I kind of liked Jondalar and Ayla until The Mammoth Hunters. At first they were kind of sweet, what with Ayla discovering the world and Jondalar falling in love. After that book, they both just became unbearable.
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ernestine
Landed Gentry
Posts: 728
Mar 16, 2005 15:22:36 GMT -4
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Post by ernestine on Jan 1, 2012 13:45:20 GMT -4
I just finished the last book and it sucked. I made myself finish it because I wanted to read the entire series, but I had a hard time slogging through it. My husband kept telling me to just put it down but I was determined to see it through. Sigh.
Nothing happened for about 600 pages. Description after description of cave paintings--I thought there HAD to be a purpose to this. I was sure it would be revealed in the end, but no-no purpose. It seems like Jean Auel just wanted us to know that SHE knows a heck of a lot about some caves in Europe. There was one scene where Ayla is taken, in excruciating detail, though a cave. Then she goes back to the cave the next day by herself and sees the same stuff again. Thinks the same things again, and for no purpose. Oh, and she doesn't get lost in this huge, dark cave that she's only been in one time before.
Others had mentioned this stuff, but I could hardly believe how bad it was. And she would say something in detail, then turn around and say it again 10 pages later, IN DETAIL, and none of the characters acted like they had heard it before. So it was very disjointed. Like each scene was maybe written in a bunch of different ways and rather than picking the version of each scene that Auel liked the best, she just stuck them all in to make it longer. Man, if I was her editior I could have saved her about ...650 pages. Which is why I'm not an editor, I guess.
A couple of more things. There is no way that Jondalar would have had an affair with that particular woman. Not if he loved Ayla like it has been presented that he did. Not after the trick she pulled on Ayla in book 5 (which also sucked, but was a frickin' masterpiece in comparison). And Ayla might have had an affair of her own to make Jondalar feel bad, but she would not have picked that man either. She would have gone for someone that would make Jondalar feel inferior. It's not ok (in my opinion) to force book characters to act out of character to fill in a nonexistent plot.
And finally, if Jondalar was going to beat someone half to death, why not make it the man who tried to kill Ayla and rape her? Yet he only hit him once.
Auel reused whole scenes from other books and the knowledge that Ayla gains here is the exact same knowledge that she had been spouting for at least 3 books now. She already knew it and now everybody else finally believed her because she came up with a verse on her own? None of this crap made sense! The only part I liked was when her friends from book 3 came to visit. But then again, it's been, like 7 years? Since she's seen them and she and Jondalar are stuck in the same battle that they were in right before they left.
No plot, no character growth, lots of loose ends and no book seven? If there was one, I doubt I'd read it. This was just not worth the time it took me to slog through it. And, might I add, I still have no desire to go look at cave paintings in Europe. This didn't whet my appetite for them at ALL.
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dwanollah
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May 11, 2024 3:13:17 GMT -4
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Post by dwanollah on Jan 1, 2012 17:38:17 GMT -4
Everything you said, ernestine. I read the whole thing thinking that it was like really crappily edited fanfic. How could a major publishing house let something that sloppy come out with their name on it?
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Deleted
Posts: 0
May 11, 2024 3:13:17 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2012 2:26:09 GMT -4
Everything you said, ernestine. I read the whole thing thinking that it was like really crappily edited fanfic. How could a major publishing house let something that sloppy come out with their name on it? Someone published Twilight, y'know. At least this had some marginal education value, what with the endless cave painting descriptions.
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Post by Auroranorth on Jan 11, 2012 10:36:51 GMT -4
No, but he's really really totally ashamed. Ugh. Honestly, I kind of liked Jondalar and Ayla until The Mammoth Hunters. At first they were kind of sweet, what with Ayla discovering the world and Jondalar falling in love. After that book, they both just became unbearable. Personally, I'm pretending the series ended there. It was a trilogy, they've headed off to a happy future, that's all she wrote.
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