Reviews with content warning for Rape - The Clan of the Cave Bear

This book has many flaws but for its world and culture-building I love it. The descriptions of the ceremonies stick out as highlights and the main characters (Ayla, Iza, Creb) are well developed so that I cared about them. I’m also a sucker for descriptions of herbalism and wilderness survival + stories driven by a mother’s love (beginning with Iza for Ayla).

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abandonedmegastructure's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark informative reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I have a lot of interest in the stone age and was really stoked to pick this one up. In the end, I was more than a little let down.

The book has two modes: either it is providing rich descriptions of reconstructed Neanderthal life (for which the author did a truly impressive amount of research and filled in the gaps very believably), or it's advancing the story of Ayla, Cro-Magnon who finds herself adopted by her cousin species after an earthquake kills her family, and struggles with her differences as she ages into adulthood.

The novel's age makes it hard to read as a straightforward educational text. Even if I assume the writer did her research, anything I read will necessarily reflect the scientific consensus of fourty-five years ago - for all I know, half the things I read haven't been taken seriously by paleontologists for all of the current millennium. Having to constantly second-guess the things I was reading really took away from this part of the work.

Ayla's own story is... slow, mostly. Entire pages are devoted to our heroine's positively glacial thought process (when they're not being interrupted by more scenes of plant-gathering), a small crowd of several dozen characters fights for their own spotlight time, and as if that doesn't sound bad enough already, the novel eschews timeskips in favor of telling us, year by year, of how the found five-year-old grows into a teenager.

Then there's the B-plot, which I found extremely uncomfortable because it amounts to "Isn't it so sad how these evolutionarily stagnant but deeply spiritual people are doomed to be replaced by a fitter, smarter, better branch of humanity, who are anachronistically blond btw". One significant character's entire arc resolves around his people's inevitable doom, and I kept just waiting for those scenes to be over whenever they popped up.

Still, the book has its virtues. The worldbuilding is incredibly believable and very evocative, the character work is competent, and the ending wrapped everything up very nicely. The Clan of the Cave Bear isn't always perfect, but at least it's interesting.

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genderhawk's review

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adventurous challenging informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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alheartman's review

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adventurous inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It’s so beautifully detailed and you get trapped in the simplicity of the world. It felt like I could take a break and just relax while I read about this story.

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theoriginallavenderbee's review

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adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I found this book extremely off-putting to read as it was essentially prehistoric soft p*rn. Ayla was extremely s*xualised.

It’s saving grace was its novelty as a book set in prehistoric times which I enjoyed—it transported me to a different world and ultimately that’s what a good fantasy book does.

The rest of it is not my cup of tea though

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dolores_b's review

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adventurous challenging dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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