Bitten (IV of IV)
Bitten (Women of the Otherworld, Book 1)
Tails up
This is the author’s first novel, and as such it’s technically well done. The paragraphs and concepts are well composed and laid out, and the story moves along at a good pace. Ideas are clearly communicated and not repetitive. The author has a nice grasp of clean word use, using imaginative and evocative phrasing to bring her characters to life. For example, I rather enjoyed her vivid descriptions of the wolves of the Pack playing with each other in their wolf forms. She also gives consistently sensual renderings of the brutal pragmatism of predatory life.
The background caused me quite a bit of perplexity, but the story itself was not bad. The author had a nice ear for dialogue, as well as a very good understanding of human psychological issues. Her demonstration of Elena’s emotional projection of her own issues onto others was convincingly done, as was Elena’s slow emotional growth. I could appreciate Elena’s increasing maturity as the story progressed.
Indeed, several rather petulantly self-centered characters appeared to grow up quite a bit, and that was enough of a pleasure to read that it kept me involved. I’ve always despised the “brooding asshole loner” as a character type, especially when they stubbornly refuse to ever buy a friggin’ clue. To have the protagonists decide they cared enough to grow up was refreshing.
In the end, the story itself (if not the story’s background) was imaginative and interesting enough that I’ll keep an eye out for the author’s other books. I expect she’s learned and improved rapidly, and I look forward to reading what she came up with next.
(originally posted 7/26/05; my replies indented)
You write: “Elena must choose between a life she’s chosen, and a life she loves but which was chosen for her.”
While this is true, I don’t actually see it as being the critical part of the story. It’s what she’s concerned with much of the time, but it isn’t the critical part.
I saw the critical part is that she has to realize who she is, both the good and the bad, is who she is, not something being a werewolf brought her. She had been blaming that for her strength, anger, and dangerousness and temper. Once she realized she was that way, she could see what she really needed, not the things she thought she needed to be “normal” or “happy.”
You write: “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.”
I agree with you about the intimidating part. I thought that was kind of surprising — this is a stronger than normal, tall, muscular woman even as a human. She should have no problem scaring people away. The idea that men all find this a come-on, or even a few of them, is silly. The author hasn’t seen it, and thinks it impossible. I think she’s wrong.
I don’t agree with you that the book said women can’t endure pain like men. I don’t recall the discussion being about pain. I understood it to be purely about the heartiness and stamina of the people being bitten, not about pain thresholds. This is not to say that women aren’t sturdy or strong, merely that the ones the werewolves bit (if they bothered to try) weren’t. Even in the books, many men didn’t survive either. The protagonist was particularly strong and healthy to begin with.
You write: “Elena comments more than once about how any truly horrible acts performed by werewolves are emotionally due to their human parts — because wolves would never be such monsters. Yet the Pack’s enforcer, legendary for having tortured and dissected the last intruder on the Pack’s territory, is consistently described as being more wolf than human.”
Were the truly horrible things the things that he did? The things I remember that she thought were really awful were things that the psychopaths did, and it was their enjoyment and pleasure in those things that she found most hideous. She did find the enforcer’s behavior bothersome, but that was because her human side couldn’t see how he could do the things he did, again reinforcing his differences from her.
You write: “Yet it is the Alpha’s son, the Pack enforcer, who is Elena’s lover.”
Clayton was not Jeremy’s son. Clayton was bitten, and rescued by Jeremy. They are fairly close in age, if I understood correctly.
Your point about alpha behavior here is still valid.
You write: “…what’s the point of her being the only female werewolf in the world, aside from creating a bit more sexual tension? Why is this so important that it’s part of the story background?”
This was mentioned by the escaped Pack member (I have problems with this one) as a way to make a “super werewolf,” a true breed, rather than a half-breed. It was not well explained.
You write: “…that sort of obsessive behavior is well beyond ‘tension-inducing plot-point’ and well into ‘deeply disturbed.'”
Yes, Clay is creepy.
I think she didn’t flee him because she needed the Pack, and Clay came with it.
You write: “In essence, this book is yet another romance novel.”
I think I disagree with you. I did not see the romance as the key part. It was a confusing issue that made it more complicated, but I didn’t read it as the important part. I saw the important part of the story to be Elena’s realization of what she needed. Once she figured that out, she was able to make good decisions for herself, and act on them.
You write: “Consequently she must also be absolutely, annoyingly clueless as to what it is she truly wants and who it is she really loves.”
Lots of people have this problem. I suspect that it’s another point of the author’s life showing through, honestly. It reminds me of the struggles many people go through in their teens as they figure out who they are and what they want to be. Only once they figure that out can they settle down and work at being that way. Until then, they flail around and make asses of themselves and act like fools. Some take longer to grow out of it than others.
You list the conventions of a romance that this book fulfills. I wasn’t aware of them as conventions. I can’t deny that it does fit these patterns, but so do many, many stories that wouldn’t be thought of as romances. I didn’t feel this book was one.
I did feel bad for poor Phillip. At least he didn’t get killed. Clayton had done some growing up, too.
You write: “Wasn’t just being werewolves sexy enough?”
Apparently not. They had to have violent, kinky human sex as well, not to mention the strange psionics and various mental links.
You write: “Thus the mutts end up with very difficult lives, and the Pack, for its own purposes, makes it even harder for them. That being the case, it seems extraordinarily shortsighted of the Pack’s members to not realize a desperate revolution would eventually be inevitable.”
True. The Pack were idiots. They should have absorbed or killed off all the mutts immediately, rather than letting them linger.
In addition, the all-respected leader of the Pack did some incredibly dumb things. “Let’s hide the people they want in a place they’ve always been, and everyone knows about! Let’s put innocents at risk too! Let’s screw up Elena’s life with her sweetie so she’ll love us forever!” Here’s a tip, Jeremy: If you’re going to have someone run, have them run somewhere they’ve never been. Tell them to go to the airport, buy tickets someplace, then buy more tickets from there under assumed names, and get really lost. Have them go someplace you’ve never used before. DUH!
The mutts were idiots, too. Rather than making helpers they could depend on, they made crazy ones. Why didn’t they bite some women of their own and start a real werewolf community? With so few Pack members, couldn’t they simply outbreed them? Or just sic the police or FBI or men in black on them or something, not going anywhere near?
Terrible tactics and strategy on both their parts.
I do agree with all the things you liked about the story. I liked it even though it was in hardback, although I had less problems with it than you did.
(Originally posted 7/26/05; my replies indented)
Howdy!
Here are some comments on your review of Bitten:
Bitten is a camouflaged romance book and does suffer from some of the clichés of that genre.
Why should Elena love her molester (he bit her without consent) and stalker (the picture wall) and not the nice guy she was living with? It seems just another story in the lame collection of “woman falls for bad boy, even thought she knows that she shouldn’t” collection. It annoyed me a lot when Elena finally fawns over her abuser. According to this cliché, “nice” guys should slap their mates around and then all the girls would love them. Yuk!
And why didn’t Elena ever give her human boyfriend a chance to know her secret? Partly because The Pack would kill him. And partly because Elena didn’t trust him. And partly because she used her relationship with her human friend to deny the wolf part of herself. But once Elena had matured a bit, and she had reestablished enough trust with the Pack to get her own way, it’s too bad she never gave him the chance to know the “real” Elena. It might have been a more interesting (and less clichéd) story.
A couple of other notes:
I don’t remember the part about Elena being less able to take pain than the male weres. But I might have passed over it. Is it possible that she was just less able than the enforcer? If so, he was the pointy end of the bell curve, even for weres.
Elena wasn’t good at intimidation. The fact that she projected that onto all females may be a limitation of the writer or of the character. I hope it’s not a limitation of the writer.
From an outside POV, the Pack were a bunch of sociopaths. Some of them were nice sociopaths. But they had no empathy for the greater community of their fellow beings. They defined the entire human race, and all mutts, as the “other” and were willing to kill them without remorse. The enforcer would have killed Elena’s human boyfriend without a thought to the boyfriend’s feelings. He did care about Elena’s feelings and the alpha’s, but not the humans or mutts. Not a nice bunch.
Elena just seemed to assume that she couldn’t have children. It was a plot hole that wasn’t well explained.
Also, why are there only 35 werewolves in the whole world? It seems like there should be lots more.
I liked how the author filled the book with sensual imagery. Elena’s world is alive with smells and sounds.
The plot moved well. The story swept the reader along and seldom bogged down. This covers up a multitude of sins in my book.
According to Amazon, Kelley Armstrong’s connected series of novels are, in order: Bitten, Stolen, Dime Store Magic, Industrial Magic, Haunted. A short story collection she contributed to: Call to the Hunt
Thanks for the review.