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Book Summary and Reviews of The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel

The Clan of the Cave Bear

by Jean M. Auel

  • Readers' Rating (4):
  • Published:
  • Nov 2001, 468 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

This novel of awesome beauty and power is a moving saga about people, relationships, and the boundaries of love.

Through Jean M. Auel's magnificent storytelling we are taken back to the dawn of modern humans, and with a girl named Ayla we are swept up in the harsh and beautiful Ice Age world they shared with the ones who called themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear.

A natural disaster leaves the young girl wandering alone in an unfamiliar and dangerous land until she is found by a woman of the Clan, people very different from her own kind. To them, blond, blue-eyed Ayla looks peculiar and ugly—she is one of the Others, those who have moved into their ancient homeland; but Iza cannot leave the girl to die and takes her with them. Iza and Creb, the old Mog-ur, grow to love her, and as Ayla learns the ways of the Clan and Iza's way of healing, most come to accept her. But the brutal and proud youth who is destined to become their next leader sees her differences as a threat to his authority. He develops a deep and abiding hatred for the strange girl of the Others who lives in their midst, and is determined to get his revenge.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Imaginative, exciting." —The New York Times Book Review

"Jean Auel has performed a minor miracle." —San Francisco Chronicle

This information about The Clan of the Cave Bear was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Jean M. Auel

Jean M. Auel is an international phenomenon. Her books have sold 34 million copies worldwide. Her extensive research has earned her the respect of archaeologists and anthropologists around the world. She lives with her husband, Ray, in Oregon, where she is at work on the next book in the Earth's Children® series.

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