I really wanted to like this book, I had invested myself in the series after all. Unfortunately this was a pain of a book to get through. I found it very repetitive and rambling, and the ending was not satisfying at all.

While I have some problems with the other books being slightly repetitive also, I always had enjoyed the overall story. The books always ended on a hopeful note, and left me wanting to know what was going to happen next. This time I felt that the characters became unlikable, the loose ends were tied in a messy way that didn't seem honest to me, and most of all I felt let down. "That was it?!" was my exclaim when finished. It almost felt like the author had gotten tired of her own story and just wrote this one because she had too.

I almost wish the last book hadn't been written, at least then I could imagine that everyone lived happily ever after.

I have waited for a very long time with the rest of you Earth's Children series lovers to only be left with more questions than answers...this book was to address Ayla's son Durc and only mentions him in passing a couple of times, I was expecting a meeting or at least a sighting or something and it leads you to think that there might be another long wait ahead for the conclusion???? It left me feeling like I had read it before and before, it had many of the same plant referrals as te other books and the same scene when Jondlar saves Ayla once at the end of Mamoth Hunters..., I also found that the book would just stop and then start years later...I am very sad that I waited so long to have no answers and to have read the same things over and over again...I am sorry Jean, but this book IMO is not even in the same class as the last 5...hopefully you are almost finished the book that will bring Ayla and her sone Durc to meet and have both worlds meet which is what I had thought would happen.