Bitten

Good first book in a series. Were-wolfy. Delicious. ( )

I had watched the TV show before and so it made it difficult to fall in love with the book. I am going to continue to read the series but in my opinion it was a lot harder to fall in love with the characters in the book versus the television show. There was not a lot of diving into the characters in the book like the show. If you have not watched the Bitten television show I recommend reading this book because they truly are a lot different. ( )

***MAYBE SPOILERS BECAUSE OF A LOT OF RAMBLING ABOUT THE MAIN CHARACTER***

I could never write an objective review for this story. I love the whole series but this first one has so many memories attached to it.

It was published 18 years ago. But I think I was a bit older at the time. Maybe I was 18? 19?

First I read them by myself. Over and over again. Then I found out it had an audio version. I then shared it with my little brother who has dyslexia and who was too old to be read to. The discussions we then had were wonderful. Even though he hated reading because it took so much of his focus, he could listen to this while doing his chores. And the narrator was wonderful.

The thing is we grew up in foster care and we heavily identified with Elena and Clay. And if you haven't grew up in the system the reasoning behind Elena's actions can seem... dumb to be frank. But to be full of rage, feeling like the family you're growing up in isn't your 'real' family and never will be, always having to try to fit in with 'normal' people, it messes with your ...

Urgh can't find the words.

But I think I can use the word core. That thing that makes you you.Your personality with all the good but also all the bad things. All your facets. Being loving one moment to children and lashing out to adults. Liking to help people out but being cold when somebody falls before you on the ground, because... not your problem.
Your core can change over time. If you want it. But nothing barring something impactful and/or traumatic can change it so much that you are no longer you. It can dent, it can have hairfractures, it can have scars. But you are still you.

Children in foster care have extreme reactions to situations that would seem ordinary to 'normal' people. Only love freely given and tools for how to react in those situations can help, sometimes. But sometimes even then it's not always enough. Their core has changed. Something else except them changed it forcefully. And the proces to relearn who they are can be even more traumatizing.

Elena isn't perfect. Hell even at the end she still couldn't see herself as 'normal' (although as a reader I though she already had her white picket fence dream). But that's what made this story so realistic to me. Her core was still hers at the end. Even if she tried to deny it. It was dented and heavily scarred but hers. And I adore the author for writing a story like this.

Also werewolves.

Seriously my love for them knows no bounds.
I was team Jacob based on only that fact and never even read the Twilight books. My little sister who did read the books would argue with me time and time again but I could not be swayed.

The only thing is about the physical book is that it already looks beat up! How? When? ( )

A Main Character That Frustrated Me But Good Plot

I thought that this book was OK. It would have earned more stars if I hadn't hated the heroine so much. I only enjoy stories where the main female character is intelligent, resilient, resourceful and displays plenty of gumption; Elena fell way short in my view. She was too much like an adolescent in her world view, though process and actions. She ran away instead of facing her fears as she had done (apparently) when she'd been a child, she blamed one person for all of the "bad things" in her life instead of taking personal responsibility like an adult, she claimed to love her boyfriend but continually showed in her thoughts and actions that she clearly didn't and

Yes she realised some of her gung-ho mistakes as she made them and admitted her self-delusion but it was right at the end, the final few pages, which was too little too late to change my opinion of her.

I liked the other characters, I thought the differences between Pack and Mutts was a little "good or evil" clichéd but like that a couple of the Mutt characters were more complex. I really liked Clay; my kind of Alpha main character. I may read the next book in this series as I thought the paranormal world Ms Armstrong has created is interesting but I won't be rushing out to buy it yet. ( )

I read several other books in this series revolving around the other narrators before I decided to give Elena's story a try (especially since she has the lion's share of the books). I was predisposed to liking it! And it was going pretty well until Clay became a major character and Elena's little love triangle became a subplot. I am so out of patience for handsome, possible sociopathic jerks that the otherwise-smart female leads can't help but swoon for anyway.

Elena's an asshole to her boyfriend, and never really got called out on that, from what I can recall-- at least not in a way that I thought would match her lying-cheating-ignoring behavior. She also fails at deflecting Clay's advances, though to be fair, Clay completely fails at accepting "no."

Clay is an asshole to everyone, including to his his lady love Elena, who, despite being a streetwise, wary woman, is both still in love with him and ultimately re-establishes a relationship with him (in a stupid, horrible way: see, the cheating and lying). A later book in the series even lampshades Clay's abusive-stalker behavior, just to giggle and shrug it off as 'sigh, something to put up with to be with him.' Yeah, okay. And of course, the whole reason Elena is a werewolf in the first place is because Clay, sensing Jeremy's disapproval and wanting to force him to allow Clay to 'keep' Elena, bites her (without her approval nor understanding)...which had every probability of killing her painfully.

Just...ugh. The plot was largely forgettable, or maybe I was just too annoyed with the lead pairing, which completely killed this book for me. If those sorts of relationships get your goat, don't make this book your opening foray into Women of the Otherworld. It's entirely possible to keep up with the overarching plot while skipping the Elena books and following other (better) heroines. ( )