Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of The Land of Painted Caves (Earth's Children, Bk 6)

The Land of Painted Caves (Earth's Children, Bk 6)
reviewed on + 188 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2


This book had a slow start and had a ton of name-dropping of characters from the previous book. I'd recommend recently reading the immediately previous book "Shelters of Stone" before starting this one.

I agree with the other reviewers, I was not as excited about the descriptions of her foreignness, the cave paintings, etc and the human drama did not start until the second half to last third of the book. Keep reading and you will get there!

According to author interviews, she has lived with these characters a long time and the time period, done a lot of research. You can definitely tell that there was a love of the subject, and I enjoyed reading about some of the animals and plants.

The second book in the series had the worst cliffhanger ending, with them meeting the Mammoth Hunters and then suddenly ending the Valley of the Horses book. This one left some strings untied which are not cliffhanger unsatisfying/angering, but could have a sequel or not. I'm inclined to think there are at least two more books in the series. Do not let the size of this book make you think it finishes the series, all the books are about this size.

Regarding ARCs, I avoid them. I've encountered several books that I read as ARCs that had issues fixed in the general release and I was not happy enough at getting the bad book early to make up for the tainted publication. I did not see the types of errors the other reviewer mentioned that read an ARC. As an editor, I would have eased into all the names and maybe included a lookup guide for names, maybe started out more in a smaller cave etc instead of diving into a summer meeting with hundreds of people from previous books.

Good luck with all your reading! If you are a fan of the series, you'll hear some recaps from the first 5 books at various parts but you'll be best off if you have read the 3rd, 4th, and 5th books recently. I find that the poems and mystical stuff are much more enjoyable in the audiobook format. You may want to try and get this book in audiobook and see what that adds to the cave painting tour.