Bitten (Women of the Otherworld, #1) (2024)

How can I write this review without sounding like I'm about to start stalking Kelley Armstrong?

I loved this book. I loved all the characters in it. It was well written, with engaging, interesting characters. The plot was fast moving and interesting. I never got bored, I never felt like it was dragging and the story was a PLEASURE to read.

This is what reading should be! Turning from page to page, absolutely and completely emotionally invested in the characters and feeling like you're right there, experiencing things through their eyes, their fingers and their brains even.

This book, to me, equals The Hunger Games and that's VERY high praise. I think I may actually enjoy it more than the Fever Series - though I don't want to go saying anything I can't take back!

I'm off to read the next books, hoping against hope that this one wasn't a fluke and that they are as well written and incredible as this one was! If they're not, I think my heart is going to break!

You know when you don't really expect to like a book based on the fact that you're prejudiced to its contents? For example, thanks to Twilight, I am completely Team Vampire (and I'm terribly ashamed at having brought Twilight up, trust me) so anything Werewolf-ish automatically sets off some inner resentment. Knowing this book was about werewolves just made me go 'blegh!' but I was suddenly determined to give it a chance, and so I did.

Oh. My. God. FANTASTIC. I was utterly absorbed by this book from the first page, completely mesmerised by the characters playing out on the pages before me. I was mentally crying as I neared the final page, torn between needing to finish and wanting it to last forever and ever.

This book is thrilling, entertaining, hilarious (it had me in hysterics!), steamy, sexy, tragic... it's honestly just a rollercoaster of adjectives. Elena is the most amusing narrator I've come across in a long time, whether she means to be or not. She is truly a unique voice and I wished that Armstrong had continued the series from Elena's point of view because I'm IN LOVE with her. Really, even when I wanted to strangle her for stupidity, I loved her. I could say that about Clay, too (GOD, I loved Clay, even when I hated him). These are those rare types of characters you never want to let go once you've found them.

Honestly, I could ramble for ages but I'm trying to contain myself. Trust me, if you have any doubts about reading this, just push past them and give this book a go. You can't go wrong.

This might be the best first-in-series I've ever read. I have favorite series, and this is definitely one of them, but most of the time my favorite book in the series is not the first one.

This one is.

I love Elena. I love Clay. I love them together, and I HATE them separated. I love their issues, and I love their issues getting resolved even more.

I can't think of a single think about this book that I don't like.

ALSO Clayton Danvers might be my all-time favorite book boyfriend:

1. He's a friggin' HOT werewolf.
2. He has no problem being in a relationship with a strong female.
3. He is the epitome of all things loyal.
4. He would do anything, A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G to keep Elena safe/rescue her. I'm talking you'd have to kill him to stop him, and he's damn hard to kill.
5. He mates for life.
6. He's a good dad.
7. He's refreshingly forthright.

I could go on (and on, and on). I love him more than Curran Lennart <----I didn't even know his last name until I just looked it up. I love him more than Trent Kalamack. More than Eric Northman. More than Ricky-bo and Cuffs Alistair. More than Edward and Peeta.

Get it?

Elena Michaels is the most idiotic and annoying main character ever. As if it's not bad enough that she's the stereotypical urban fantasy heroine (hates being "different", continually tries to be "normal", etc.), she's also just plain -stupid-. The spends the entire book swearing on her life that she doesn't love Clay (ex-fiance, turned her into a werewolf, blah blah blah), and yet is cuddling up with him and spending time with him the whole time, DESPITE the fact that she keeps saying how much she cares about her human boyfriend back home.

And then, whenever Clay tries to get serious about her and him getting back together, she completely shuts him out and shouts at him for no reason and doesn'tlisten to a word he says.

If the story hadn't revolved around Elena Michaels, the book would've been passable. But since it did revolve around her, it was awful.

Full review: http://persyandarty.blogspot.com/2012...

|| 1.5 stars ||

At first, the premise seemed kind of interesting with a somewhat intriguing plot and a couple of exciting character dynamics, but in the end I just wasn’t impressed. Nothing really led anywhere, and I couldn’t find it in me to care about any of it. Everything quickly became boring as well as repetitive, and I wasn’t a fan of the writing style either.

Also, I didn’t connect with the main characters at all as I found her to be unnecessarily combative, whiny and just overall a pretty terrible person. I genuinely couldn’t stand her.
The romance was also plenty awful; they had no chemistry whatsoever and all they did was fight or f*ck. It was insanely shallow and extremely annoying.

Lastly, when it comes to the actual story, I struggled to root for “The Pack” since the way they treated “mutts” just seemed completely wrong. They treated them like second rate citizens for nothing more than the place they were born. It was discrimination in the highest degree. Thus, I honestly felt like a revolution against The Pack was more than justified, so I couldn’t find it in me to hope for The Pack’s victory. That definitely wasn’t my idea of a happy ending.

A lot of authors tend to rely on supernatural abilities to make their fantasy and paranormal characters more appealing to us foolish mortals who seek our escapes amongst their pages. But Kelley Armstrong’s werewolves in Bitten must rely on grit and personality alone, because aside from having the ability to Change their shape, they don’t have any bizarre powers. They aren’t immortal, they can be killed just as easily as any other non-supernatural creature and it doesn’t take a silver bullet to do it—they could be gored by a deer, hit by a truck or even strangled or have their throats slit by a human psychopath.

The abilities Armstrong’s werewolves were granted were surprisingly believable, even without that total suspension of reality that is required to read a book about werewolves or vampires or the Fey. They were stronger than the average human, able to run harder longer, bench press more and do more pushups. And they could heal faster, but healing wasn’t an instantaneous process, it still required rest and time. And even though there was a slight psychic connection between the alpha and his pack, it was no more eerie than the close bond between a set of twins or best girlfriends or a married couple so in tune to each other that they frequently find themselves dialing the phone to call the other at the exact same time. It was Armstrong’s ability to subtly draw you into the werewolves’ world that sold me hook, line and sinker.

Like so many others who read urban fantasy and paranormal romance, werewolves have not been my favorite characters. Vampires, yes. Other fantastical beasts, erm, okay, but only if there’s a vampire somewhere in the book. But werewolves??? Eh. Pass. Fortunately, the high ratings this book has received practically forced me into giving this book a shot. And frankly, I loved it!!

Elena Michaels is one of the most intriguing heroines I’ve encountered in quite some time. She is the only female werewolf in existence and in the history of the Pack. She was raised human and after losing her parents in a car crash, was in and out of foster homes for her entire young life. She suffered the unwanted attentions of her foster fathers and grew up wanting nothing more than to have that normal human life: a good career, a caring husband, a home…

But when she was bitten by a werewolf during college, everything changed and her dreams for a normal life were ripped away from her because suddenly she was faced with violent urges, a ravenous appetite and the need to periodically change form and run as a wolf through the night. Obviously the latter is hard to do in a big city like Toronto, but after gaining some control over her other half, Elena tries to make it work.

She takes a job as a journalist with the newspaper, has a wonderful human boyfriend named Phillip who is kind and considerate and buys her flowers, and she quietly appeases the werewolf inside her by sneaking in-between meals at street vendors so her live-in human boyfriend doesn’t notice her above-average appetite and she sneaks out of the apartment at 2 a.m. to stalk and scare local security guards—a sad excuse for an all-out deer hunt, but she makes do.

But then she receives an urgent message from Jeremy, the Pack leader, and Elena can’t ignore it: her Pack is in danger. Elena leaves Toronto and flies to a remote area in upstate New York where her Pack is headquartered. And there she finds Clay, just as she left him, waiting for her, still in love with her.

Like Elena, Clay is also a dark, tortured hero. And the relationship Armstrong weaves for the two is both passionate and painful and oh-so wonderful, and the fact that the relationship was second to the urban fantasy plot of an all-out werewolf battle for territory didn’t make it any less satisfying.

No spoilers here, so I won't say anything else, except that I highly, highly recommend!

I first read this book when it came out and loved it. It was one of the few books I'd read that focused predominantly on werewolves. I've read MANY since and so I went back and reread this because I was curious if it would hold up against the masses. Oh boy. It did.

Let me just say that out of all paranormal books I've read, Clay has to be one of the sexiest, if not the sexiest male character. I'm not sure why exactly, maybe it's because nothing about him is really overdone, a lot of his appeal is in his silence. He doesn't have to build a monument to himself and then stand on top of it screaming that he's an alpha like some characters. With him, you just know it. And you want it. BAD.

I'm sick with a cold/flu thing so I'm not sure how good my judgement is right now, but I definitely found my new book boyfriend here. His name is Clay and he's a sociopathic werewolf. He hates humans and kills them without remorse. But, he is also willing to kill anyone for the woman he loves. Isn't that romantic? He's so sweet!

aww, you are kinda cute with your little noseless face, aren't you?

So, this book is about the only female werewolf in existence, Elena. She's not happy being a furry and left the pack to live a human life. She found a nice mellow man and is trying to pretend that she is a nice mellow woman. But, you can't keep a good furry down!

Yeah, the human experience may be a little over-rated...

Elena gets called back to the pack to help hunt down some rogue werewolves who are killing people. Being back home reminds her of her wild side, plus there is the matter of a very alluring sociopath, so...

go get your freak on, girl!

This one's been hanging around for a while, since it was recommended to me sometime last year. I saw that kiwiria loved it and remembered that I had it, so thought I should get onto it sooner rather than later. To be honest, the fact that it's about werewolves put me off. I greatly enjoyed Kerri Arthur's Riley Jensen Guardian series (the main character is a werewolf), and Kresley Cole has some wonderful lycanthrope characters whom I love, but generally they don't hold the attraction that vampires do. Well, I really should re-think that now.

Elena Michaels is an orphan with a horrible past of foster families and abusive foster fathers since her parents died in a car accident when she was little. Meeting and falling in love with Clay, an esteemed anthropologist doing a stint of teaching at the University of Toronto, was the first time she could be more herself, and he was the first person she could be honest and open with. Until she's bitten by a werewolf and becomes the first female werewolf ever, and forced into a life she did not want, with the Pack.

Ten years later, she's carving a human life for herself in Toronto as a journalist, living with her boyfriend Philip, and forcing herself not to Change until she can't help it. When she does, she goes out in the early hours of the morning and chases security guards in the car parks, and rabbits in the ravines. Her attempt at fitting in with humans comes to a jarring halt when the Pack leader, Jeremy, asks her to return to Stonehaven in New York State. There's a killer on the loose in the town who's obviously a non-Pack werewolf, a mutt, leaving the mutilated bodies on Pack territory and bringing the police to their doorstep.

Returning to Stonehaven, Elena finds herself fitting into old patterns without fear of exposure or judgement. She still yearns to be human, or at least, to fit in in the human world, but the situation is becoming more threatening and her Pack-brothers are losing their lives: and the enemy wants her.

While the Prologue was necessary in setting up the main character and narrator, Elena, and it worked well written in present tense - gives it that timeless quality - I found it a bit boring and was worried I wouldn't be able to get through the book. It wasn't long before I was completely riveted though.

It comes down to Elena herself, I think. She's tough, she's bitchy at times, she's smart, yet she has this aloof, lonely quality that adds a touch of vulnerability and really made me feel for her without being told to. The way she describes her past and how she dealt with it, the way she over-thinks her way through the world of humans, concentrating and always thinking, what would a human do? (Even though she used to be human, she's not anymore.)

Then there's her relationship with Clay, which is what really drives the whole story. Clay is an interesting character with at least three noticeable sides: cold killer; eager, childlike boy with a wealth of feeling; and borderline genius. He's moody but predictable, dangerous and lethal but oh so loving and loveable. I just loved the fact that he wasn't easy to sum up, that he was complicated.

More than that, though, the plot was exciting and even though, after the prologue, the rest of the book is written in past tense, it still has that "now" feeling where the narrator, Elena, isn't giving hints as to what happened later, but narrates as if she has no idea either. That gives the story a great deal of suspense and tension.

For a debut novel, this is a bloody good novel. The writing quality is very high, the character development is wonderful, the plot is absorbing, never boring, and the moments of humour are very adult and speak to a level of intelligence that most popular fiction aims below. It's an intelligent, mature book, very hard to put down, and I'm very keen to read the second book featuring Elena, Stolen.

A warning to the reader, don't pick this book up if you cannot devote hours to reading it. You will be completely absorbed into this tale of a woman who happens to be a werewolf, and isn't completely happy about it. Elena is a fascinating protagonist, not all bad, but not all good either. She has an animal side to her that she has suppressed, but when dead bodies start turning up, killed by what is clearly a werewolf, she can no longer hide from her werewolf origins. Another thing that makes this book so fantastic is Clayton Danvers. That man is dangerous. You wonder how Elena can stay mad at him, although he really did her dirty (you have to read it to find out). The pack dynamics are interesting. As the only female werewolf, Elena is cherished like a beloved sister and daughter. But to Clay she is and will always be his mate, even if she runs away again. If you are looking for an urban fantasy book written like mainstream fiction, or a good fiction book that is very much urban fantasy, or a really incredible werewolf novel, you would probably just love this book.

I’m going to start off by saying this is my all-time favorite series of books for the adult mind. I love a lot of series, but I read this one when I was in high school (which, I shouldn’t have honestly) and INSTANTLY fell in love with it.

Why shouldn’t I have read it then? Well it is 100% an adult book. It has graphic scenes, sexual and bloody and probably shouldn’t be read by a fifteen year old. I was tired of reading the high school equivalent reading level though, and my Kindle recommended this series to me so I bought it and I was hooked!

Even though this is in the erotica category on some pages, this is not an erotica. It has sexual content, but I wouldn't go as for as that.

I have said many a time that I am very in love with weird books. Well, this is one of those books. It’s a werewolf book. DON’T STOP READING I PROMISE IT IS DIFFERENT THAN BOOKS YOU ARE THINKING OF THAT WE SHALL NOT NAME ON HERE.

This book was originally published in 2001; four years before werewolves started to become popular. Kelley doesn't glorify them as some books, she actually inputs how their instincts change, how "the change" from both forms is actually super difficult and agonizing.

Elena is the heroine in this book. She is a... werewolf. Not by choice though, she was bitten. Bitten by someone in “the Pack” I would say. She left the pack to try and get her life back on track and do things her own way.

The Pack: the law and order of the werewolf community in America. I have read the rest of the series (a long time ago) and I believe there are different packs in different countries that keep order.
Mutts: those werewolves that aren’t in the pack and are usually out killing, raping and eating anything that they see. Very out of control and wild.

She’s the only female werewolf to live through the change into a werewolf. Most have died and the hereditary wolves can only be male. So she is very wanted by all werewolves because of, you know, their nature to want to find someone who is their equal.

The story starts out with Elena in Toronto with her live-in boyfriend Philip. The only person that makes her feel human. He doesn’t know her species and she plans to keep it a secret from him for forever, which isn’t easy.

She gets a call from Jeremy, the Pack leader, saying that he needs to talk to her and its urgent.

After a few phone calls back, since Philip insist that she calls back someone she claims to be her family (she’s an orphan; which has a back story of its own), she gets annoyed and she flies out to New York to see what is up.

There’s a mutt killing on Pack territory. That isn’t acceptable. Jeremy enlists her help without her say-so. She helps though because she feels she owes Jeremy everything.

Things go scary wrong… and the Mutt behind everything? MY WORD.

Read this book.

Kelley Armstrong is one of my favorite authors. She knows how to grab your eyes and ears and not let go. She has written other series and I plan to read them all! Her writing style is glorious. I feel it is harder to write in first-person like she does; but, as I have said before, she does it flawlessly.

*** 3.44 ***

A buddy read with the MacHalos, because we were in a wolfish mood:)

There is nothing really wrong with this book, it is just written in a heavy info-dump type of style. It is written from the POV of Elena Michaels, a "bitten" werewolf who is trying to live like a normal human, since the circ*mstances under which she was turned felt like a betrayed and she did not want to have anything to do with the pack. The Pack wants her back, and particularly Clay, who considers her belonging to him. The main character goes from current time into reminiscing about the past and most of the narrative is just telling us stuff, but not really letting us experience it... If we were allowed to live through all those formative events with the character, I think the book would not have felt like a chore a lot of the time, because in the moments of current action and discovery, the narrative shined and the reader could really get engaged. Her moments of anger, passion and fear were very powerful and poignant, and I constantly looked for them, but they were few and far in between...

"...“The truth is, if a werewolf behaved like this psychopath it wouldn't be because he was part animal, but because he was still too human. Only humans kill for sport.” ..."

I remember reading this book at the time it came out and I loved it. I remember thinking of the writing style as somewhat cumbersome and flat-footed, but I still enjoyed it. At the time it seemed new and exciting, the UF genre just hitting its Golden Age. However, since then there have been a saturation of the field and the reader has been given many wondrous were-related series, and I am not sure if this book has aged as well as I thought it might have.. However, if you like a story which takes its time to develop and has plenty of intermediate action, this is a good one. I would also recommend it to those who are just getting introduced to this genre, since it does have some very well established werewolf lore in it. A very good jumping into the pool of furry monsters springboard:)

"...“Cosmo never speaks to my life. Its surveys always ask questions like How would you react if your lover announced he was taking a job in Alaska? and jumping for joy is never one of the options. Move to Alaska? Hell, my lover was thirty-seven and hadn't moved away from home yet. Where were the questions relevant to my life?” ..."

Also, there were things that bothered me more this time around, like the betraying of trust, the casualness of cheating, and the fact that she was a bit of a pain in the ass... I am not sure why those grated on me more on the second try, but it is what it is...

Now I wish you all Happy Reading and many more wonderful books to come!!!

Well, I think it’s very safe to say that I am not a fan of Kelley Armstrong’s writing style. Too bad, she’s very popular. But I just could not get into this and I tend to love Urban Fantasy. So what happened?

Well, for starters I think I am starting to tire of the Werewolf plot in books… you’d think it would be the Vampire storyline, but no. I get so bored by reading all of the pack dynamics and posturing. As a result there’s only a few shining examples of Werewolf fiction done extremely well for me – Maggie Stiefvater, Andrea Cremer, and Sisters Red were also quite good. Though, admittedly, the Werewolves were the baddies, not the goodies. I’m just not big on Werewolves being the only preternatural element. They don’t do it for me to carry a story. That said it’s a good thing I am planning on reading this soon. Le eyeroll.

Besides that Armstrong’s writing style does very little for me. I read The Summoning before and I was underwhelmed. Her writing does not compel me, does not keep my attention glued to the pages. She spends way to long establishing ideas for my tastes (sometimes a whole page devoted to one paragraph). And the inner dialogue of Elena does not makes her sympathetic to me. I didn’t like her as a narrator, and (from what Armstrong fans and friends of mine tell me) she’s supposed to be the best narrator of the whole series?! Incredulous. I was bored the whole first chunk of the book and, as a result, didn’t even crack my customary 75 page rule. Ouch.

1 out of 5 stars.

- review courtesy of www.bibliopunkkreads.com

Werewolves in Toronto! I loved it!

Elena Michaels never wanted to become a werewolf. She knew nothing of this world. Now, because of a sudden impulse by her werewolf boyfriend, she had become the only known female werewolf.
After a few years, being tired of this world, she decides to leave the Pack and live again at the big city as a normal human. She has a nice job and a nice new boyfriend.

Unfortunately for her, the Pack needs her back. Clay, her old boyfriend, wants her back. She still belongs to him after all.

What I loved in this book:
1.It takes place in Canada
2.The refreshing writing style
3.Some unique new ideas like the fact that werewolves suffer when they transform or that there are only male werewolves and Elena should never have been created.
4.Clay. Totally obsessed with Elena. Totally red-blooded, psycho male. I need to read more books from this series, but he has all the potential to become my favourite werewolf.

“You forget, darling.
I am the local psychopath”

Plot: 4 star
Characters: 4.5 stars
Writing: 4.5 stars
Sexiness: 4 stars
Ending: 3.5 starsOverall: 4.1 stars

In describing this book, I would first and foremost like to use the words carnage, mayhem and kinky.

Normally the kinky stuff really grates for me but for some reason the way it was written, and the story overall, made it a non-issue for me here. The whole, 'primal instinct' thing totally worked.

I was a little bothered by them calling themselves werewolves when they seemed more to be shapeshifters, but then the carnage started and I was totally okay with it.

So, it's kinda like ... I went into this book a little sceptical, and the slowish start had me fully expecting to be trashing it by the end, but ... here it is ... I kinda fking loved it. *shrugs*

I mean, there were some things that were a bit ehhh, like poor old Phillip who was always going to get the raw end of the deal, but the mayhem totally won me over. Nothing soothes my soul more than blood and guts and absolute chaos. I also took to the characters unexpectedly fast. For example, how was I so shattered about Logan when I hadn't even met the guy??! They were such a fun bunch. I thought I would hate the predictable relationship between Elena and Clay but them hating on each other all the time was actually a lot of fun.

I also really loved that Elena was stubborn and did stupid things and thought stupid thoughts but you could kinda see that, even though it was told in first person. There is some sweet sarcasm that was dished out in just the right dose, meaning I actually kinda liked her sass.

Honestly, everything I thought I would hate about this book I ended up loving so I can make no serious complaints. Some of it was predictable but there was plenty I didn't see coming and the carnage and mayhem was exactly what I wanted out of a werewolf novel. I'm so glad it wasn't all about naked frolicking and bestial*ty.

I'd probably rate it R for the kiddies, though. This is no sweet and tame monster romance, my friends.

This was so entertaining and, even though I didn't expect it to be so NSFW, I really enjoyed it. I'm not giving it 4 full stars because I'm a fan of the TV show and TV Elena is way less whiny, immature and annoying than book Elena (not to mention laura vandervoort and her stunning face totally make a difference) and because it seemed to rush in some points and drag in others.
Overall it was a good read and I really liked how similar it was to the TV show.

ACTUAL RATINGS 3,5/5

Out of all of the shifter books I have read this has got be the be the best one I have ever read. I was starting to think that shifters may not be for me, but wow can Kelly Armstrong write. I was a little worried about this series because I wasn’t too fond of her young adult series. But I can definitely say I will be continuing with the Women of the Otherworld series. I am highly addicted to some Elena and Clay.

"You forget, darling.
I am the local psychopath.” She stared at him. “Oh my God, it’s scary you noticed that."

I absolutely loved this book to death. I loved Elena and Clay. They are like the perfect couple ever! While Elena is back for a while trying to solve this problem for the pack, Clay is making good use of this time trying to win her back. I know we get glimpses into the future of what happened to these two concerning the bite and all of what she went through when she got bitten, but I was a little disappointed to learn that we didn’t get anything about how Elena and Clay first met and what let up to the engagement and bite. But then I learned that there is a book about that. So, yea. can’t wait for that.

"What's this?" Nick said. "Bedtime?"
No one answered him. I kept my eyes closed.
You look positively content, Clayton," Nick continued, thumping down on the floor. "That wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Elena is cuddled up with you, is it?" "It's cold in here," I murmured.
Doesn't feel cold."
It's cold," Clay growled.
I could start a fire."
I could start one too," Clay said. "With your clothes. Before you get them off."

In the book Elena is still having trouble coming to terms with her being a werewolf and I loved her dealing with that, figuring out who she is and by the end of the book finally excepting everything. She has come a long way. My favorite part of the book is Elena and Clay and I just have to say I WANT MORE! I can’t wait to read book two in the series, Stolen and find out what happens next in the Women of the Otherworld Series. If you are a big time shifter fan you will devour this book. I highly recommend this book to any urban fantasy fan.

More of my reviews at Mystifying Paranormal Reviews

#41 Bitten by Kelley Armstrong
rating 4 of 5
436 pp

This is the literary equivalent of eating potato chips. Not terribly filling or nutritious but lots of fun, and it sure is hard to stop once you get started. I have already read the author's third and fourth books, Dime Store Magic and Industrial Magic and I have to say I wish I'd started here, at the beginning.
Note to self: read a series in order! Regardless of when you manage to pick them up at the used bookstore, forbear until you can begin at the beginning, otherwise you're just plain missing out.

Bitten is pretty unique. There are quite a few books out there with strong, female Witches or demon-fighters or vampire slayers as protagonists, but not many where the heroine is a bonafide werewolf. Actually, Elena is more of an antihero. She's not really a very nice person; that's why I like her! She's funny, grumpy, sarcastic, and has very little compunction about ripping up a rapist or pedophile. She also gets to engage in a couple of pretty hot love scenes (in human form, don't worry). Neither these parts nor the violence are overly graphic. I'd say this series would be OK for a 14 or 15 year old, since they see much worse than this on TV, but parents please use your own discretion with your own kids!
I think what I like best about this book is that Armstrong's take on werewolves is pretty sensible. Their need to Change is a biological function that is either genetic or contracted by being bitten. As one character puts it, it's "about as much fun as having a bowel movement." Well, he doesn't actually say "bowel movement," the vocabulary is definitely PG-13.
No need for silver bullets, either. Armstrong's werewolves can be killed in any manner that would kill any other living creature, including knives, regular bullets, or being run over by a truck. They don't magically return to human form after death, either. A dead werewolf is just roadkill. And human predators (see aforementioned rapists and pedophiles) are far scarier than anything the supernatural can produce.

All in all, a highly entertaining read. I'm in the mood to open another bag of chips and start right in on Stolen, the next book in the series.

edit 19/4/2023 (bold italics in brackets is me commenting on my old review):

(so i reread this book and it has some issuessss bro... why was my child self fully obsessed with it... anyway...)

This is chock full of angsty romance (a lil too angsty to be honest. sometimes that male lead gotta back it up and cool his jets.), paranormal beings, death, bargains, pride and tricks. One of my favourite Kelley Armstrong books and one that I'll treasure forever! (not so sure about that treasuring forever stuff but hmm alright.)

(the rest of this review will be newly written by me.)
look. i can see why my 15yo self was obsessed with this book. it's got some very overprotective male vibes, and some like alright smut, and the characters are pretty cool. but there are also some iffy bits... some CNC type stuff which is meh, some special snowflake syndrome, you get it. so i'm not sure what to rate this. might lower it to 4 stars and ponder for a while.

honestly, this book is really addictive and plenty entertaining, and i had a lot of fun while reading it - really, i could barely put it down. but it's also just trashy. so i guess read it if you're looking for some good old pnr trash!

Apart from the fact that only Jericho Barrons could have rescued Bitten from a pool of mindboggling dullness, Armstrong's werewolves just didn't match my expectations *sulkily stripes away raw animalism, carnality, pack troubles, alpha fights, angst, werewolvish sex - whatever that may be..*. I actually caught myself longing for the werewolves in Blood & Chocolate, trailer trashy and imperfect as they were.

Wouldn't surprise me if the pack in Bitten grows organic tomatoes for a living too.

I'm probably just bitter though, everyone else on Goodreads seems to be bitten and smitten.

💀 DNF at 27%.

No bloody shrimping comment. (See bookshelves for details and stuff.)

3.5 ☆

I was far better at killing things than keeping them alive. Good thing I never planned to have children.

Human rules confounded me... The problem came with human interactions. My childhood had been pretty screwed up. Then, when I'd been on the cusp of being an adult, I'd been bitten and spent the next nine years with werewolves.

Maturity is highly overrated.

I didn't deserve Jeremy's kindness. I knew that. I suppose that was why I always questioned his motivation... When I'd realized there was nothing bad in Jeremy, I'd latched on to another excuse: that he was good to me because he was stuck with me, because he was a decent guy and maybe even because he felt some responsibility for what his ward had done to me. I wanted him to enjoy my company, but couldn't believe in it because I didn't see much in myself to warrant it.

Philip wooed me with all the patience of someone trying to coax a half-wild animal into the house and, like many a stray, I found myself domesticated before I thought to resist.

“You forget, darling. I am the local psychopath.”

Here I had a wonderful man who cared for me and I was screwing around with a self-absorbed, conniving monster who'd betrayed me in the worst possible way.

Pretty much until the last twenty percent, I was quite content and thinking of giving Bitten 4 stars. The pace was a bit slow but I had enjoyed the organic revelation of Elena's personality and her issues and that of the other key characters. But in the final stretch, Elena acted TSTL, sigh. I was already reading an atypical-for-me female UF character so I didn't appreciate being pitched off of the fence I had been straddling. The ending also had two oh-so-convenient assists instead of going in a more logical way. Oh, well, Bitten was still a good read and I'll check the sequel.

#2 Stolen 3.5 ☆
#6 Broken 3.5 ☆
#7 No Humans Involved 3.5 ☆
#10 Frostbitten 4 ☆

Men of the Otherworld #1 3.5 ☆ rounded up
Tales of the Otherworld #2 3.5 ☆
Otherworld Nights #3 3.5 ☆

1/8/2014 UPDATE

I finished this freakin book! YES, I read it all on my third attempt! I feel f*cking proud right now!

The most weird thing is that I didn't hate it. You would think that since I'd already tried the book 2 times and couldn't finish it either of them I would hate it. But I didn't. The writing was decent, the characters interesting if not exactly mind-blowing and the plot pretty original for its genre.

And I will admit here that I read it mostly because I've watched the show and I liked it. I have a thing for crappy TV-shows, don't judge.

I don't think I'll be reading the second any time soon but just the fact that I finished this makes me really happy! I'll up my rating to 2.5.

18/2/2014 UPDATE

Of all the awesome PNR and UF series out there this is the one that gets to turn into a TV show??

I knew it even before beginning this book that either I would completely loathe it, or I would not finish.
Bitten was forced upon me by a colleague who's a paranormal romance fanatic. The book was also mentioned several times to me by other goodreads members, so I decided to give one more chance to paranormal. I always end up giving too many chances to things I know I would never find a likeness for. Perhaps I'm biased. In fact, I think I am; starting any book with "I'm going to hate this" doesn't really help push away the negative thought from your mind even when you're half-way into it and it actually is not that bad.

Perhaps Bitten was subjected to one of my several severely lethal prejudices, for example the fact that it was written by a woman. I'm not a sexist and nor am I against feminism (as long as it focuses on strengthening women and not degrading men). But I am a complete misogynist when it comes to skill-lacking female authors penning down their silly fantasies in the shapes of contemporary Paranormal and/or Young Adult romances. To all these ladies: stop. Please. You're making me hate the fact that I'm a woman. The worst part is that these 'books' are gaining more popularity than a would-be-secret-child of Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. Another reason I've stopped sifting through the Goodreads Most Popular and Highly Anticipated Books of whatever-year lists.

I went a bit overboard with my contempt up there, and Bitten, while not completely off the contemporary romance Venn Diagram, wasn't as bad as some of the others, with the paranormal mixed in it. Bitten wasn't as poorly written as most Paranormal romances that I've tripped across (Hush, Hush--I shiver). It actually had quite a nice bit of tone to it, to be honest. The writing wasn't mediocre, but the story it portrayed was horrible.

I don't think Bitten had a story, and if it did, that story did not surface even after 160 pages of the novel--the point where I put the book down calmly and decided to kick it out of my life and memory permanently (I bet something drastic would've turned up right on the 161st page, eh?) The major setback was how the events were unfolded: we have a thirty something real shallow, like real shallow, female protagonist thrown into a bizarre and highly unrealistic set of events. She was thrust into a house of men (of course, she was the only woman there, so, sex vibes radiating off everywhere) who she had a past connection with of more than a decade, and that connection was never explained. It felt like Elena Michaels was getting abnormally comfortable in a house full of complete strangers and this was downright weird.

Clayton, the supposedly alpha male douche bag of this book and the undeniable love interest of Elena Michaels, was a mess. Apparently, Elena hates him, but he still has full liberty to use her whenever and wherever he desires, and then both pretend nothing happened and Elena goes back to hating him. It's such a bullsh*t chemistry, that I don't even get it. Who the hell behaves like that? Oh and it's completely not cheating on her boyfriend, Philip, when she sleeps with this asshole because, hey, he's different. He's a werewolf. Werewolf genitals don't count.

The action played like a movie where you accidentally hit the [slow motion] button. There was literally no description, instead we get some pretty useless and unnecessary musings from Elena's head, with no concern for logic during humane interactions. The whole progression of the book was choppy and static. Like someone broke up one story into parts and pasted them haphazardly, with some paragraphs and histories missing. No other character stood out, except, perhaps Jeremy. But even he wasn't saved from being stereotyped.

Conclusion
I still think I can give paranormal another chance. I'm of the belief that it's my misfortune to trump across the most blatantly ridiculous representatives of the genre and that there are some gems out there, away from the clutching hands of the mainstream fan-base and devoid of preposterous romance, which are still waiting to be found and help redeem Paranormal books in my eyes. The Dresden Files looks like a good place to start. I'm also open to other Paranormal recommendations, preferably not linked to women, romance and alpha male douche bags.

I really liked this book. It was a bit slow at the beginning but once I got over that I was completely hooked. We are introduced into a new werewolf world with this series, one that has not been described in any other series I have read so far.

Our heroine is Elena. She was just a normal girl who made the mistake of falling in love with her teacher, a young hot and sexy blonde who had her crazy in love since they first met. I mean, what would you have done in Elena's place? I know if I was in her place just the same.But then things got terribly wrong once she got bitten by this wolf. She woke up and immediately realized things were wrong, very wrong. First she is alone with this guy (Jaime) who keeps telling her she has been bitten by Clay (the teacher) and that she is now a werewolf. She doesn't wanna believe this but the evidence is right there in her.
The cool thing about this book is that being a werewolf is not nice, it's the worst thing that could have happened to Elena. She just can't control it. Not any other women survived the change, she has been the only one so far and is suffering intolerable pain while being extremely confused trying to analyze things. She just knows she has to escape From this Jaime who keeps telling her that to stay with him and the pack is the best thing she can do so far. But will she listen to him? Or will she leran by the hard way Jaime was right?

I'm not gonna say anything else about the plot because I don't wanna spoil it, I just wanted to give you all a pick inside this great and different series. I loved to see Elena struggle to understand everything in this new world and Clay trying to make Elena understand this was the right thing for her. How will he make to get Elena's love back after what he did to her? Well you have to read it to know guys,lol. Enjoy!

Bitten is more than just a werewolf book. Yes, it follows the story of a werewolf named Elena and the trials and tribulations of her pack. There's plenty of action and sex. But what is so exceptional about this book is the complex emotions invoked by our main character.

Elena never wanted to be werewolf. She had a miserable childhood, shuffling through the foster system, enduring horrific abuse. She survived, clinging to the idea that she could make a normal life for herself; grow up and create the kind of family she never had. But in college, her fiance Clay, took away her dream of normalcy, when he bit her and turned her into werewolf. That was about a decade ago and she still hasn't forgiven him. Instead, she's abandoned her pack and started a new life. She hides what she is and works to pass herself off a normal woman, especially to her live-in boyfriend, Phillip.

But she is forced to return to the pack when her alpha, Jeremy, calls her for help. There is a rogue wolf in pack territory and they need Elena to help sniff him out. Clay is there, making matters more complicated. And as the story progresses and the rogue-wolf plot becomes more dangerous and deadly, we see Elena fighting the pack, Clay, and herself and she tries to figure out where she truly fits in.

Armstrong makes it easy to see both sides of Elena's warring emotions. The hurt and resentment for Clay is understandable in the context of her horrific life. Yet, at the same time, it's so apparent that these two have something epic between them. Clay loves her so much, and that is even more meaningful when compared with how little he values almost anyone else. Elena and Jeremy are his whole world. And it's clear that no matter how hurt Elena was by his bite, her heart will never be free of him. He is an undeniable part of her. Her relationship with Jeremy is almost as fascinating. She is so insecure about his feelings as he remains inscrutable. He gives her orders that on some levels feel cruel, but when you look more closely, you can understand why he makes the decisions he does. And even if it's not clear to her, it's clear to me, that he loves her.

Elena's relationship with Phillip definitely muddies the waters. It's hard not to be a little turned off that she jumps from his bed to Clay's without a shred of guilt. I suppose that shows where her heart lies, but it paints her in an unflattering light. Armstrong makes no bones that Elena is far from perfect, but perhaps that makes her a better heroine.

There is a lot of action in the book. Several people die and not just fringe-characters. I thought the story arc was exciting and took some unexpected directions, which I enjoyed quite a bit. This was a great introduction to the Otherworld series. 4 1/2 stars.

Bitten gets off to such a good start. It reminded me climbing inside a late model luxury car at a rental agency, a car that's been recently waxed and has that New Car Smell. And then doesn't goddam go anywhere. I gave Kelley Armstrong 86 pages to turn the ignition before I got out and walked back into the rental office for other options.

This 2001 novel is the first person account of "Elena," a blonde haired Toronto resident who's a werewolf. What lured me in here was Armstrong's prose, which is often sensual and exciting, at least in the prologue, where Elena wakes at 2 a.m., sneaks out of the Toronto apartment she shares with her new boyfriend, transforms into a 130-pound wolf and goes for a run in a ravine.

My legs pick up the rhythm before I'm halfway down the ravine. I close my eyes for a second and feel the wind slice across my muzzle. As my paws thump against the hard earth, tiny darts of pain shoot up my legs, but they make me feel alive, like jolting awake after an overlong sleep. The muscles contract and extend in perfect harmony. With each stretch comes an ache and a burst of physical joy.

Armstrong has a gym membership, clearly. Good work so far. Nothing heart-stopping happens in the prologue but it does set up all sorts of interesting questions as Elena returns to her boyfriend, Philip, who has no idea what she is.

-- Does Philip suspect Elena is cheating on him?

-- Has Philip ever noticed Elena's superhuman strength in bed?

-- When they went to see The Fellowship of the Ring, did Elena start to wolf out in the theater? That was a long damn movie.

-- Does Elena's diet puzzle Philip?

-- Does Philip have an interesting occupation like zoologist or veterinarian that would make him wonder if his fear of commitment was making him imagine things about his new girlfriend, like, that she might be a dog?

We never find out in this novel. First, Armstrong has no facility with characters or dialogue. These are bland people with generic backgrounds, nonspecific occupations and boring hobbies. If you guessed they have nothing to talk about, nothing important, you'd be correct. I liked the decision to begin the novel in Toronto; that city is ripe with possibilities in the summer, but Armstrong doesn't explore them.

Then we have the dialogue:

"Well, which is it?" Jeremy asked, his gaze skewering mine. "Pack or not?"

"Come on, Jer," Clay said. "You know she doesn't mean it."

"We had an arrangement, Elena. I wouldn't contact you unless I needed you. Well, I need you and now you're sulking and fuming because I had the gall to remind you of your responsibilities."

"You need me for what? To take care of a trespassing mutt? That's Clay's job."

If you missed that the characters were named Elena, Jeremy and Clay, it's okay, because Elena, Jeremy and Clay call each other Elena, Jeremy and Clay by name on every page.

Armstrong's characters refer to each other by name so often that I couldn't help but notice how wrong the names were. "Elena" should belong to a raven haired gypsy type, a bohemian, not a gym Barbie. The pack leader is named "Jeremy". No, sorry. "Jeremy" is an unemployed musician, maybe a blogger, but Jeremy is not an alpha werewolf. His lieutenant, a killer with six-pack abs is named "Clay." A werewolf named "Clay"? No. "Clay" is golf or tennis coach. I kept imagining him wearing a Polo shirt.

Armstrong doesn't show any ingenuity when it comes to her narrative either, which involves Elena departing Toronto to assist her Pack, a group of six or seven men who exist in the human world, but are unable to deal with one rogue werewolf who's intruded on their territory in upstate New York. House trained werewolves, apparently. As they assemble, the werewolves enjoy a delicious breakfast of pancakes and ham.

Werewolves eating pancakes and ham.

I can accept psychics, vampires, werewolves, etc., but one motif I find silly is the secret club motif. This is where characters with supernatural powers get together and have themselves a little meeting to discuss action items, assign jobs and deadlines, and maybe gripe at each other. It's all very social and practical and nice but excuse me, BORING!

Psychics, vampires or werewolves do not have meetings. These are not the kind of people who like to chit chat. These are people who've been given godlike powers and yet -- and here's where an author can have fun -- these powers make it next to impossible for them to connect with others. They may be able to help others out of a desperate situation, but will never be accepted by them or invited over to watch Netflix. They walk alone.

I mean, would you want to hang out with a psychic, werewolf or vampire? And if a bunch of them are in a secret club together, it's just so silly. There's nothing as ridiculous as a compliance meeting if you're a werewolf. Maybe my antipathy for compliance meetings is surfacing here. Bottom line, I was dreadfully bored by the direction Armstrong took her novel and will not be reading more of her books.

Very conflicting feeling here.

Here are some of my thoughts:
•I’m just gonna outright say it. I don’t like the protagonist, which is such a disappointment because my friend recommended me this book for the exact reason that it has a strong protagonist. LOL. I just find her so frustrating. Yes, I totally feel for her for her past – it is damn sad and terrifying. I think the narrative may have been not worked for me in this case because it comes off more detached than emotional especially in regards to sensitive topics, such as sexual abuse. There is no doubt that the protagonist suffers from her trauma and lonely past, but again, it is hard for me to truly connect with her because of how the narration is. This rarely happens for me as I read a book, especially if it is 1st-person POV, but I guess I just don’t click well with the author’s style. As for the actual reasons why I don’t like the protagonist: she’s hot-blooded, contrary, and a cheater.
•I see why she is conflicted with both guys. One is safe, nice, and leads you to the life you’ve always imagined. The other is risky and unpredictable. I get it and I think the author does do well characterizing both of these characters. I like them both.
•I just did not like how Elena handled it. She is so wishy-washy and hypocritical, as she lies to everyone and herself, from beginning to end. I mean, sure, she is learning through this – I respect that. It just got too much because it was ongoing and with her bad temper, it was even more irritating. She hates Clayton one second, having sex with him another second. Then, she hates him again, has sex with him again, accuses him of murder. Has sex with him again. It’s just all back-and-forth with her. And while cheating on her boyfriend. Geez. Then she says she’s going back to her “normal life with her normal boyfriend.” And then blah blah blah. It’s a whole cycle of her refusing her feelings for Clayton and pushing him over. I mean… Like, he already waited for 10 years for her to come back to him, so it’s a bitttt too much.
•I like Jeremy. Father figure.
•Nick is chill too. Hope he gets his own book.
•The paranormal world created by Armstrong is darker than some other paranormal books I’ve read. It has a more “realistic” edge to it. I have to say it didn’t love it, but I am curious still. If I continue this series, I can’t wait to explore the world some more and especially new main characters.
•I think Armstrong is trying to cultivate a “strong female protagonist” among the patriarchal paranormal world she has created. It is tough to swallow because of some of the blatantly patriarchal notions in this world. Hopefully, there would be a lot of developments on the female characters in the later books to counteract this.

Overall, 2 stars (maybe 1.5). I didn’t like the protagonist. The plot/world-building is somewhat interesting, but debatable.

I couldn't finish this not because the writing was bad, or even because the plot was boring (I really couldn't judge, I never got that far into it, but it was going ok). I just really hate the characters. Clayton is probably the most unattractive and disgusting love interest I have read in a book thus far. Am I the only one who finds their first sex scene discomfortingly rapey? I know that they're relationship is 'complex' but I just couldn't stand him. I always stop after that scene, disgusted with how it is played. As in 50 Shades, a woman's attraction/physical reaction to the man forcing her seems to make everything okay, when it REALLY isn't. Knowing from friends that the book was going to focus on their dynamic, I just couldn't continue, as it's everything I hate in a romance - a first love who ruins the female character's life through some horrible life shattering decision that she's unable to go back from, and yet she still ends up with him. How is that okay? It's just means she's trapped, unable to progress, or shake the influence of the man who in many ways devastated all her hopes and dreams.

Elena starts off ok, and I truly do understand the conflict within her due to the tumultuous past (maybe just a bit too tumultuous, as it fits with a lot of tropes that have - perhaps after Armstrong used them - become cliches), but I didn't sympathise enough with her to continue the story. My vague like of her was not enough to combat my hate of Clay and my dislike of her when she's around Clay. She's a 'strong' character, but not strong enough to get rid of the influence of both the pack and her former lover. As the pack is also all male, I found that moral a bit discomforting. Jeremy treats Elena's attempt to break from the Pack and the life she's been forced into with indulgence, as if it's a childhood tantrum, and, ultimately, he is proven correct, which is something I really wouldn't have been able to stomach. So I just put it down and moved on.