Earth's Children Series by Jean M. Auel

Ok, so I wanted to review these books first, as this is the best example of my reading habits.

I’m reviewing the series as a whole, as I find it unlikely that someone would only read one or two. If you read the first and like it, you’ll read all of them.

I first read this series in seventh grade, about 11 years ago give or take. Since then, I have re-read these books hundreds of times. This is not an exaggeration. Literally, at least a hundred. Conservatively. I read very very fast, and I re-read obsessively, at least books that I greatly enjoy. Obviously, the more I read a book, the faster I can read it, as I know exactly what paragraphs I can skip (boring, scene-setting prose mostly.) So these books, by now, I can easily read each in a few hours’ time, impressive considering the length of some.

Clearly, since I’ve read and continue to read these books so often, I would recommend them to nearly anyone. Actually, no, I wouldn’t, but I’ll get into that. The basic point of the series is the growth and journey of a human girl/woman, Ayla, as she grows up in Ice Age era Europe. The author extensively reasearched period flora and fauna, hunting, gathering, dwellings, everything. The descriptions are immersive, beautiful, and vivid. However, if you don’t care for authors spending pages describing temperate forests or glacial permafrost steppes and the animals thereon, you’re not going to like this book (or, you could do what I do at this point, and just skip the aforementioned scene-setting prose.) 

Also, I would not recommend this book for seventh graders. It contains EXPLICIT, DETAILED ADULT SCENES NOT SUITABLE FOR YOUNG CHILDREN. When I was young, I skipped these scenes as clearly, boys are gross. Now that I find boys slightly less gross, they do add a raunchy and romantic element to the books. Still, not entirely appropriate for youngsters.

I love these books. I love the kick-ass heroine, I love that they are all independent and self-reliant. I love how the author creates a romantic world that I totally wish I could live in (even though I realistically know living as a hunter-gatherer would SUCK.) I also love pretending the latest book, Shelters of Stone, doesn’t exist because it was pretty lame and didn’t jive very well with the other books. This is not surprising, as it did come about 15 years after the one before it was published.

These books are not universal crowd pleasers. I feel like they are very niche-marketed. If you’re in the historical-romance-kickass-heroine-girl-power niche, I give the series a 95%. If you’re male or not in that niche, I’d give you about 20% chance you’ll love it.                                      P.S. I stink at formatting. I give up.