Book Review Genre: Alien Romance subgenre

Disclaimer: Reading is all about exploring new worlds, but this Book Review does not shy away from spoiling specific scenes as this is more of a look inside the good and bad of a book.

The Analysis:

This is part of a TBR Bingo 2022 that I’m doing in conjunction with a bunch of others over on Booktube. If you’re interested, check it out, here. I’m going to be doing lots of readathons and TBR prompts to help myself get through my backlog of ebooks on my kindle and google play. So, let’s book review it. But first, follow me on Goodreads.

Here’s The Blurb:

It’s said that women and men are from two different planets when it comes to communication, but how can they overcome the obstacles of prehistoric times when one of them simply doesn’t have the ability to comprehend language?
Ehd’s a caveman living on his own in a harsh wilderness. He’s strong and intelligent, but completely alone. When he finds a beautiful young woman in his pit trap, it’s obvious to him that she is meant to be his mate. He doesn’t know where she came from, she’s wearing some pretty odd clothing, and she makes a lot of noises with her mouth that give him a headache. Still, he’s determined to fulfill his purpose in life – provide for her, protect her, and put a baby in her.
Elizabeth doesn’t know where she is or exactly how she got there. She’s confused and distressed by her predicament, and there’s a caveman hauling her back to his cave home. She’s not at all interested in Ehd’s primitive advances, and she just can’t seem to get him to listen. No matter what she tries, getting her point across to this primitive but beautiful man is a constant – and often hilarious – struggle.
With only each other for company, they must rely on one another to fight the dangers of the wild and prepare for the winter months. As they struggle to coexist, theirs becomes a love story that transcends language and time.

Cover Critique:

I like it. It’s all giving me caveman romance. The model on the cover certainly paints a picture for you of what the hero looks like. But if you’re more interested in the reality Mark Monday, on Goodreads, came with receipts.

Now The Story:

Book Review Info:
Pages: 313
Author: Shay Savage
Available: Amazon

The story is told from the caveman’s pov and I really came to appreciate and love the character. There is no central conflict to this story, tho. But the author keeps it interesting by showing you what a slice of life might look like surviving in the forest with a caveman from that time period. The heroine is clearly a victim of a time travel mishap. This explanation is speculation because the heroine’s pov is not prominent in this story, nor missed if you ask me. Surely her personality doesn’t have much to offer from what we see of it from the beginning.

Now, when she hit him and broke his spirit several days into their interactions. My first thought was this chick is not worthy of a caveman lol. Some of this was from the constant crying and perceived mood swings. The only time I truly felt for her was when she managed to make utensils and he broke her first plate by accident. He wasn’t aware of what they were for or did, but her hope was wrapped at that moment and it was devastating. I felt that even though he didn’t.

But the most interesting part has to be the heroine coming on her period. The hero knowing exactly what to do was just the sweetest moment of the whole book. But he had lots of moments like that. Try to read this and not fall in love with the guy.

Now, the most confusing moment has to go to all the intimacy scenes and the heroine’s hesitation. But the explanation is pretty clear by the end of the novel. And once things turn steamy they do take up a considerable portion of the novel.

We also get to follow our two main characters into old age and several more children. I have to admit I almost got teary-eyed when they died together. But I got sad for a different reason when it’s revealed in the epilogue just how she found her way back in time. If this girl was underage then this whole thing is unfair for a different reason. I’m taking a point off for the ambiguousness of it all. She might not have had enough life experience to make the decision she did to stay in the time period with him. And her crying and the mood swings made perfect sense if she’s just some teenager fresh off of prom. I’m not sure how comfortable I’d be just learning she was in college either. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Thats why another point was taken off. But this was definitely an enjoyable read.

But by the time her father shows up (near the end), I really realize the limitations of being with someone like Ehd. And this guy who’s attentive, caring, and loving without even knowing the word, unfortunately, gets knocked down a peg in my eyes. I’m an author, I also consider myself an intellectual, and I was definitely sold on this relationship. However, his inability to accept her father because he just can’t truly connect the statement in his head, nor understand the father saved his sick daughter’s life presented a limitation that I’m not sure I could get over. He almost killed an innocent man because of nothing more than a misunderstanding. And she can’t clear it up because words like ship, hospital, don’t exist in his vocabulary or understanding, but maybe they should. It exposed the fact, to me, that you can’t sit with him and talk about the world, your feelings, or even necessarily plan for the future. It’s all living in the moment. Sure, he’s capable of these things, but he can’t express them to her. He also might have some mental limitations in that interpreting her “sounds” talk gives him a headache. Put this in context of modern times and the men who right now want nothing more than to live off the land and post tiktoks of beautiful views in the middle of the Amazon. Do you really want to be beside them? Or do you just like the view of it from your phone? This turns less into a dream and heads firmly into fantasyland. Just an epiphany, nothing that truly takes away from the enjoyment of the book.

The author does have a 1.5 accompaniment to this novel from the heroines pov for those who are interested, but not I. Now, I admittedly have questions that are not answered in this book because we don’t get the heroine’s pov, and I’d love to see scenes about what happened to their first daughter Lah, but I did a deep dive on the reviews. And there were more than a few that felt like those answers weren’t necessarily answered in this book. And that’s good enough for me.

This book is a cute read that will be fun to talk about in book groups and booktube etc. But I can’t say it’s a must-read for anyone.

Story At A Glance:

Recommendation:  3 out of 5

Read Series Continuation:  No

Book Review Ratings:

Book Cover Appeal:

🍓🍓🍓🍓🍓

Story & Narration:

🍓🍓🍓

Romance:

🍓🍓🍓🍓

Character/(s) Personality:

🍓🍓🍓🍓

Read one of my books and leave your own book review.