However, I do think she popped onto her own website a few years back to ask if people had particular favorite plots or characters from the first two books because she didn't really remember it much anymore. We were horrified.

See, I totally get that. She is asking them, as readers, what worked for them. I get that she doesn't remember earlier work that much--she is always going to be all wrapped up in whatever she is working on now. Plus, rereading early work can be painful, in that all she will see is what she thinks is "wrong" and so wouldn't be able to pick the right threads to pick up on even if she did read it.

I thought Jean Auel was dead, when I thought of her at all.

I have to confess, I only read her books for the sex. Though once I started laughing at it, it was all over.

I'm a completeist. And, I admit, I have a certain amount of nostalgia for those books. I started reading them when I was...probably 10? So I will pony up the $25 every decade or so, just to see what happens.

I've certainly spent more money on worse things!

FWIW, I didn't mind the last one, but Plains of Passage was pretty boring. I just wanted to see what happened when they got back to France and Jondalar's family.

And when I was younger, I loved all of the detailed information about the Ice Age and herbalism and survival and such. Now? I'ma skip it: "Blah, blah, boneset, blah, blah, comfrey...I've read all your damn books, woman! I know how she sets a frickin' leg!"

I've read all your damn books, woman! I know how she sets a frickin' leg!

Ha!

That was one of my biggest problems with that last book--it was just a rehash of so many things she'd already covered, from botany and Stone Age healing practices to all of the characters' personal issues. I was just so sick of it all, and the fact that it was written in a mindnumbingly boring fashion didn't help anything.

I'm only 20 chapters into the first Hunger Games book and it already turned me into an emotional mess.

understandable, zuisa! i was reading it at work one day and got to a part that made me cry. i had to turn around to make sure no one could see.

When I was reading last night I got to the part where Rue dies and Katniss sings to her and oh my goodness was I a mess. I hear that the other two books in the trilogy don't exactly get any happier so I am prepared for lots of sadness in my very near future.

I was reading Catching Fire during Sara's swimming lesson last week, and got to a part that absolutely shocked me -- like take my breath away shock -- and teared up.

Luckily, it was so humid in there I don't think anyone noticed.

zuisa, I got to that part while I was eating lunch at Chipolte. Thankfully I could cover the tears with a fake hot salsa cough. Man, I finally had to not read them while out at lunch 'cause you never know when a gut punch is coming.

I read the second one on a really bad day and wept for miles. I'd like to call it healthy and cathartic, but I don't even know.