The Plains of Passage

Whew! It has been a month since I blogged about my reading but I have been reading so I'll try to catch up now.

The Plains of Passage is the fourth book in the Earth's Child Series by Jean M Auel. Best known for the first installment, Clan of the Cave Bear, this novel follows the two main characters, Ayla & Jondalar as they travel East across the continent on a year long journey toward Jondalar's home. This is my least favorite of the series so far. I absolutely loved Clan of the Cave Bear and was delighted when The Valley of Horses was even better but for different reasons. The Mammoth Hunters was entirely different and not as enjoyable. While Plains has an interesting story line and quite honestly is an interestingly told story it is stagnated by long narrations on the plant and animal life of the ice age. While I am sure it is well-researched and very interesting to those who are interested I found it quite boring. I think the story could have been told quite successfully in about half the number of pages(868 in my copy). Furthermore, the lengthy descriptions of the characters love-making grew quite tedious after a while. I have the next book on my to-read list but I think it will be a while before I begin it. It took me almost two weeks to plow my way to the end of Plains of Passage.