♥♥♥♥♥♥: Bitten by Dan O'Brien and Giveaway!

Bitten (Lauren Westlake Mysteries #1)
Dan O'Brien

Page Count: 274
Release Date: 16 April, 2012
Publisher: self-published
Source: Complimentary copy provided by author in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you!)

A predator stalks a cold northern Minnesotan town. There is talk of wolves walking on two legs and attacking people in the deep woods. Lauren Westlake, resourceful and determined FBI Agent, has found a connection between the strange murders in the north and a case file almost a hundred years old. Traveling to the cold north, she begins an investigation that spirals deep into the darkness of mythology and nightmares. Filled with creatures of the night and an ancient romance, the revelation of who hunts beneath the moon is more grisly than anyone could have imagined.

Review

I reviewed O'Brien's The Journey back in July, and while it didn't exactly strike my fancy, I decided to give the author another try with this one. Bitten flows in a slightly different vein, with the same eerie glow, but a more developed plot, cast, and structure that made it way more enjoyable.

The victim toll of brutal, violent murders is rising in the previously quiet and uneventful town of Locke, Minnesota, and federal agent, Lauren Westlake, arrives, determined to find out who—or what—is behind the random slaughters. While she is unfamiliar with small, cold Locke, the town regulars are convinced that there has got to be something beyond government measure responsible for the uncorrelated events... a conviction Lauren, herself, soon painfully discovers.

As far as horror literature goes, O'Brien has a direct, unabashed writing style that is descriptive, shocking, and just detached enough to be highly appropriate for the content conveyed. It is, however, too choppy at times, and the author seems to have a bit of an aversion to contractions, which made Bitten overall a difficult read. Vocabulary- and structure-wise, the book is pretty minimalist, but because of the unclear and unkempt writing, you have to trudge through this one.

The characters are too disinterested and flat for me to have felt anything while reading. While there is a bit of romance, nothing really stirred inside of me because of how unfamiliar I was with the involved parties, even by the end of the book. The poor characterization certainly detracts from my enjoyment of the novel, but its mystery/thriller elements prove that it is primarily plot-driven, which makes up for lack of persona somewhat.

My biggest problem with this book is the stilted dialogue, which branches off of poor characterization and goes hand-in-hand with the contraction-less diction. If the way characters think and talk just doesn't seem realistic to me, there is a 100% chance I will pick it apart. Let me tell you: "I am not sure that it would be the best idea..." is a severely outdated, awkward, and yes, awkwardly outdated, way for anyone to speak in any modern era. Bitten is completely composed of sentences like that, which, if you're like me and enjoy REAL dialogue, may have you tearing your hair out by the roots after a while.

I'm not completely ripping Bitten apart, though. I was impressed with O'Brien's ability to carry out a dark, sensual undertone throughout the entire novel. I couldn't turn one page without a sense of foreboding, of unease, and that kind of effect on a reader is quite an achievement. The aspect of werewolves is fresh, too. Bitten does not have your typical romanticized shapeshifter/alpha-male hero; instead, we've got a creepy, gruesome, and completely uncensored monster roaming about—the original werewolf.

Love

"We let others complicate our lives. We choose to live that way. We choose to include people in our lives."

Pros

Hint of romance // Vividly and gruesomely descriptive // Dark, foreboding mood // Highly thrilling and shocking // Creative incorporation of werewolves

Cons

No contractions found anywhere // Very choppy, difficult style // Unsatisfying ending // Lots of typos // Stiff, unrealistic dialogue // Flat, shallow characters // Slow-moving

Verdict

Aside from the undeveloped cast of characters and disconnected style, Bitten is a promising story that will appeal to lovers of shapeshifters, literary horror—the good ol' blood and guts—and mystery. A decent read, Bitten is a werewolf novel with serious bite!

6 hearts: Satisfying for a first read, but I'm not going back. ♥♥♥♥♥♥

Giveaway!

Dan has generously offered one copy each of The Journey and Bitten for you pretty readers today. That's two winners total! To enter the giveaway, fill out the Rafflecopter form below:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Rules and Disclosure:

Giveaway ends January 9th at 11.59 EST (your time).

Open to US residents only. Sorry, international!

Winners have 48 hours to claim their prize once they are chosen, or else their prizes will be forfeited.

I am in no way responsible for the prizes, nor for shipping and handling.
As a reminder, you do not have to follow my blog to enter, though it is always very much appreciated ❤ Plus, you get extra entries ;)
Good luck!

♥♥♥♥: The Journey by Dan O'Brien

The Journey
Dan O'Brien

Release Date: April 16th, 2012

Publisher: CreateSpace (self-published)

Page Count: 176

Source: Complimentary copy provided by author in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you!)

The Frozen Man. The Translucent Man. The Burning Man. The Wicker Man. The guide known only as the Crossroads, together these are the signposts and totems of the world that the being called the Lonely inhabits. Seeking out the meaning of his journey, the Lonely is a being consumed by philosophical inquiry and adventure. Filled with exotic places and age-old questions, the Journey is a book that seeks to merge the fantastical and real. Join the Lonely as he seeks out answers to his own existence and perhaps the meaning for us all.

What Stephanie Thinks: I will say I've never read a book quite like The Journey... I don't really know what much else I can say about it. The novel follows the spiritual (read: imaginary) voyage of a soul named Th'bir, who loses (though later rediscovers) his identity at the embarkment of realm in-betweens, and thus is referred to as The Lonely. At first, The Lonely is as confused and in the dark as readers are—he doesn't know who he is, where he's from, or what he's doing at the surreal crossroads of discovery, but he, and we, are soon to find out.

He is instructed to receive guidance from various beings, but they're not really beings, not really human. They aren't necessarily gods or spirits either. They just are. From the Frozen Man he learns of the "necessity of logic ... the infallibility of thinking and observing without emotional bias in order to find the meaning of things" (74), from The Burning Man, he discovers "the obscurity of definition, the reality of emotional content and the inspection of all things created and man-made to find out their deeper significance. To perhaps approach life and the realities of what that encompasses from a humanistic position, to see how they apply to the individual, not as a broad statistical judgment taken without relevance to how stratified life truly is." In other words, The Lonely is exposed to infinite, inconsistent ideas, and it is up to him to analyze and sort them out on his own. It is up to him to reconstruct himself out of the ideas he is thrown, and the long, grueling spiritual journey is where it will happen.

Existence, as well as the purpose of life and death are also pondered upon. While the notions and wisdom conveyed are thought-provoking—I found myself engaged in concepts that were always in the back of my head, but never really brushed upon until O'Brien mentioned them—I found this book overall to just be weird. There's no real plot, no real characters, no real point, and that to me, is unsettling. The structure is a mess, and the flow very hard to follow. I'd love so much to just accept a story like this for how it is, in all of its philosophical and psychological disarray, but I could hardly make sense of, let alone enjoy it, so I'm afraid it isn't something I could recommend.

Dan O'Brien is not a letdown with words, though. His style is lush and fast-paced, nothing I have to dig too deeply with, very easily skimmable. Which is why it's a shame how the absence of essence made The Journey a difficult read. Reminiscent of Nicolai's The Case, the cluttered plot, unclear intention, and ambiguous storyline constitute this story, and they really are all it has to offer. This book is very new age-y—strange, but not in an intriguing way, just in a "what the fuck did I just read" way. Maybe after a bit of polishing and refinement, I could try this one again, but for now, no thank you.

Stephanie Loves: "'Men find validity in their lives from histories and proofs, ignoring the mysterious beauty that surrounds them and the thrall of those things unexplained. Babies grow into children and then into adults. First, they are cared for greatly for in order to be able to care for the generation next and so on, as needed. However, in youth there is a time during which we learn of something that we often too easily let go of: imagination."

Radical Rating: 4 hearts: So-so; reading this book may cause wrinkles (from frowning so much). ♥♥♥♥