Bitten by Kelly Armstrong (I of IV)
Bitten (Women of the Otherworld, Book 1)
by Kelley Armstrong
Originally posted January 2006
Credits: For George, who was nice enough both to lend it to me, and to give me fair warning — and for Lou, who helped me think things through. ;)
I was set to really enjoy this story, as I’ve always loved the idea of being able to shift shape into a powerful animal form. Now I’ve finished it, I’d have to say it was… okay. I’ll give a synopsis and list the problems I had with it first, so I can close on a positive note.
Synopsis
Elena, our protagonist, is utterly unique. In this world, “werewolfry” is invariably contracted only through one of two ways. Either it is acquired through the male genetic line, or through being bitten — which is ordinarily so painful and damaging that few men and no women survive the process.
Further, there are only about 35 werewolves in the entire world, and of those, less than ten are members of the ruling class Pack — who refer disparagingly to all the remaining, lone werewolves in the world as “mutts.” Thus, due to a remarkable set of circumstances Elena is not only a member of the exclusive Pack — she’s also the only female werewolf in the entire world.
Elena is not happy about this, as she feels deeply betrayed by her lover having bitten her. After a decade or so of being a werewolf, she’s left her Pack in an attempt to discover who she truly is. Currently she’s financially successful, romantically involved with a nice man, creating a nice niche for herself in her job… basically just trying to make it in the human world, even as she must struggle to deal with the issues of occasionally being a wolf.
Then her pleasant, carefully constructed “human world” life has to be put on hold — because the Pack calls for her return. Someone is messily killing humans near the Pack’s home, and the Pack is afraid they’ll be discovered. Elena must decide between a nice life she’s created and chosen for herself; and a life she loves on a gut level, but which was created and chosen for her by her former lover.
Tails down
Right off the bat, I had a serious issue with two of the basic premises of the story: women aren’t as intimidating, or as able to endure pain, as men are. Unfortunately for the story’s background premise, every independent study ever done on the subject demonstrates conclusively that women have more endurance, and handle pain better, than men. I’d guess, from this story’s basic premise, the female author has not yet given birth or engaged in any very physical sport.
Also, Elena routinely laments her inability to scare off even normal human men, and concludes women just can’t do intimidation. When I read that I had to laugh; it was painfully obvious the author had personal issues showing up in the character.
As a woman, I have more than once “bounced” men away from bothering me — sometimes without even trying. Frankly, I wish the author had done a bit of research before making such silly assumptions. Issues such as these make it hard to take the story’s background seriously. Once my suspension of disbelief has been so rudely shattered, it’s like poor Humpty Dumpty — everything comes tumbling down, and it can’t be put back together again.
It is a common human misperception that intimidation arises only from the amount of damage an individual can do to you, or that you perceive it can do to you. This is (at least amongst animals, and humans within strongly hierarchical societies) entirely false.
True intimidation is more a matter of leverage, and simply watching a baboon troop for a while will teach you that. The first time you see a buff young male being chased off by an even younger female who’s half his size, you’ll see it in action. The little female can’t do that much damage personally to the big male. What she can do is bring down her entire matrilineage on him — with a single scream. Every single sister, brother, aunt, cousin, and her mom — and possibly any other nearby males — will come running and will gleefully trounce the buff young male.
Frankly, this was one of the issues I had with both Elena in particular, and the author’s world background. She should have been practically bursting with confidence, and near terrifying for the “mutts” — not only was the most scary werewolf in the world her mate, but she was also backed by the entire Pack! That she was simply pathetic every time she tried to intimidate says to me (once more) that the author really should have done some actual research on animal behavior, rather than faking it.
Further, I’m afraid Elena wasn’t as nobly inclined as you assume. She did not wish to protect human life — she just wanted to be able to live as a normal human. Her desire was, as far as I can tell, basically selfish. Hmm… now I think on it, that’s another reason she seriously failed to impress me. Maybe some of the other books in the series have better protagonists. ;)
I tried not to laugh, at the idea that women can’t do intimidation.
Of course in the end it comes down to: who do you ask? All you need is an extremely intense woman (they exist. Collie is one of them), or a woman that is any good at reading a man and knowing what buttons to push , or a woman that has more confidence than the man, and bam, intimidation happens.
And when you’re a werewolf? Holy shite! How can you not be intimidating? Okay, maybe you’d have a hard time intimidating other werewolves, especially in the case where there are no other females, and so they’d be dismissive of you, but don’t generalize.
Just off the top, though, I wonder why there has to be a choice between the human life and the werewolf life. Want to protect people? Good on you. Doesn’t mean you can’t do what needs doing, and then go back to the life you want most.
This theme reminds me heavily of another recent book I’ve read: Death’s Daughter by Amber Benson. The protagonist is, of course, the daughter of the mortal that inherited the mantle of Death, and therefore became immortal, and with certain responsibilities. His daughter inherited the immortality, but didn’t want the life that came with it, so went so far as to impose a magic of forgetfulness on her so that she could live a normal life. Except she’s pulled back in when her father and elder sister disappear, and she has to take on the mantle of Death to save the family.
I have not finished the book, because the personality of the protagonist so got on my nerves, and so I already wonder if the protagonist of this book is anything similar… :}