Bitten

[skysailor]

Finished Kelley Armstrong's "Bitten." I shall now blabber so that I will hopefully stop going up to my poor roommates and telling them random reasons why I hate this book.


Now, don't get me wrong. The characterization of the main chara is very complete and everything she does makes sense for her character and her background, the fact that I absolutely despise her notwithstanding. So I shall sit for a moment and try to convince myself that it is a good-quality book.

Yeah, no, it isn't. Apart from Elena, everyone else is like a cardboard cut-out, thoroughly lacking in any depth and easy to describe in one sentence.

One thing I found interesting is that the only way you can really distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys is the fact that one side is declared the good guys and one side is declared the bad guys. Oh, and some of the bad guys use weapons, but that's considered bad taste by the other bad guys, anyway. In fact, the good guys do pretty much all of the torture in the book. The similarity between the sides is so blatant that I can't help but think it's intentional. Take, for example, the extensive explanations Elena will give on why she wants to leave the Pack - and then not two seconds later she's blabbering about how all mutts (werewolves who don't want to be part of the Pack) are evil and bad thief-people of evil badness.

Then again, I have a tendency to excuse books based on spiffy things that I convince myself are intentional, like Twilight and its fucked-up relationship dynamics. (I had to get to the last book before I finally broke myself from denial and realized that Meyer actually considers Edward/Bella to be an ideal and not insanely screwed up).

Moving on from the characters, we have the main content. I will admit that many of the action scenes are rather thrilling, and Elena's emotional reactions to them are very well-done. However, these scenes compose the minority of the book. In the majority of the book? Nothing happens. In between our small nibbles of action, we're left with endless scenes of her daily life in Toronto, her daily life in Stonehaven, her daily life in Toronto again, her...

I understand as an author. Slice-of-life scenes in the middle of an action plot are a guilty pleasure and sometimes very important for understanding the characters. But when they're most of the book? It's boring. And tedious. And annoying.

And the climax. We come to the climax. The climax was, well... it was a good set of fight scenes. The events that occurred matched the characters within them so well I could predict a lot of it before it took place. But it was just... not exciting enough. Or maybe it was very exciting, and I was viewing it in the dim light of the rest of the book. Who knows? But when she started pulling her Lone Ranger bit I was kind of expecting her to fail, not confusedly succeed via circumstances mostly outside of her control .

So yes. Let us return to the main talking point for me, the thing that I have ranted at my helpless roommates about... Elena. The main character. Ugh.

Okay, for one? Reading what basically amounts to her rape fantasies does not make me feel hot. I understand why she has this facet of her personality, why she and Clay have that certain type of screwed-upness to their relationship... but srsly. Stop. Or just say "Stop." Now.

For another, she has this perfect live-in boyfriend of absolute perfectness, goes off to Stonehaven, and instantly starts smexing her psychotic old flame. Instantly starts smexing him in various ways and in various places and in various positions, including above-mentioned acted-out rape fantasy. It's a point of characterization, it's recognized, etc, but... it still makes me hate the character. And then she goes back and tries to pretend things are normal with our dear sweet Phillip, whom we learn is the most perfect guy in the world ever.

Speaking of going back to pretend things are normal with Phillip, we also learn about what she thinks a normal human being is like. In attempting to live a normal life she lies about everything - she thinks a standard human woman is an exceedingly passive creature who never becomes angry about anything. She lies to Phillip about what kind of breakfast she likes to eat, what other foods she likes to eat, the fact that she likes horror movies, the fact that she likes sparklers, just... everything. Yes, it's a characterization point. Yes, it's made note of and is an important part of her character development. But it still makes me hate her even more.

Ah, Phillip. Poor Phillip. I think when she leaves him bleeding on the floor to go chasing after Clay, only to bother to check up on him, say, a week later (no, wait, several weeks later) was just the ultimate "fuck you." I mean, really. And she sends flowers and a note? 'Cause that's totally reassuring when he just got stabbed because he lives with you. I seriously don't blame him for booting her ass. He doesn't deserve her. I will grant, however, that the text recognizes the precise reasons why she considered him a low priority and that the flowers and a note plays into her passive personality.

Passiveness. Omg the passiveness. For all her independence and fightingness and stuff in the action scenes, in any kind of interpersonal relationship at all? Passive with a capital P. She goes along with everything anyone wants for her if it's not fighting/killing-related. By the end of the story we're expected to believe that the character herself has changed and made decisions and etc., but let's be honest. She hasn't. The final changes in her location and future at the end of the book reflect what other people have said they want her to do, and they just happen to go along with her own wishes, which she would never have acted on if it contradicted everyone else.

In detail: When she's with Phillip at the beginning, she passively goes along with every development in their relationship. Then she has to go down to Stonehaven and passively goes along with everything Clay wants and everything Jeremy wants. Then when she goes back to Toronto she passively goes along with everything Phillip wants when he's around, and everything Clay wants when Phillip's not around. And then at the end of the book when she "decides" to move back to Stonehaven, this is mostly because Phillip's made it clear he doesn't accept her wolfiness (or maybe just her abandoning him to dieness) and boots her out, while the Stonehaven people are pressuring her to come back. Supposedly it really is her decision because before going she left a note for Clay and etc., but... let's admit it, sweetie. If Phillip hadn't booted you you wouldn't have had the guts to leave.

So yes. I am done with this book. I never have to read it again. They managed to reach the end of the one subplot I cared about, so I don't even have to find some purchase-free way of finding out the end of that.

*heavy sigh* Now to get myself to finish Furies of whatever. Wee.