1985's top-selling book The Mammoth Hunters full of prehistoric high school drama

 

I realize that I'm applying a different standard here but, unlike how I stopped reading the book Rabbit Redux because I realized that it was part three of a trilogy, I didn't have the same hesitation about reading part three ot this Earth's Children series. Somehow, I sensed that it wasn't going to be as important.

I think I was right.

Whereas the relationships in the Rabbit novels seemed to be built upon the happenings of the previous books without explicitly recapping past events, thus motivating me to read them first, everything that previously happened with Ayla, the main character of The Mammoth Hunters, was recounted in overt detail by either the narrator or through dialogue.

I would have presumed that this book became a top-seller thanks to interest in the series after the release of Clan of the Cave Bear, the film based on the first book, but nope ... this book came out a year before the movie. So, it was just a big hit amongst those seeking some ancient mating and hunting rituals action?

Because, to be blunt, that's pretty much what this book has to offer. Some interesting tidbits about the emergence of humanity and early drops of civilization sandwiched in between plenty of harlequin sequences of longing, spurning, yearning, throbbing, and hundreds of pages of conflict built upon simple misunderstandings.

The dialogue flitted between stunted proto-English ("How you know what I feel?"*) and verbosity ("Oh, it's going to be so exciting to go on this adventure with you!"*) that it often sounded more like a time travel adventure of two timelines crashing together.

There are also moments of Forrest Gump-style banging up against history with inventions a-plenty and even the first domestication of wolves, which aren't problematic but were simply amusing.

I don't feel the need to read the other books, but I'll watch the movie sometime.

(*not actual quotes)