review: Raised by Wolves by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

pub date: June 8, 2010
publisher: EgmontUSA
pages: 418
source: Library
format: audio
appeals: wolves, romance, paranormal
content: some violence

thoughts:
Some books should not be listened to. This is one of them.

The first two discs NOTHING HAPPENED. Or at least very little happened, besides setting up this world of wolves through the eyes of Bryn, a human girl adoped by the pack as a four-year-old. Boring. And rather tedious. I'm not sure I would feel that the beginning was so tedious if I wasn't listening to EVERY WORD. While reading, I can skim.

Then there was also the repetition. Three different kinds of repetition.

1) Information. Repeated over and over and over and over. Again and again and again and again. Yes, I know you have a mark on your hip, under the waistband of your pants, Bryn. You've told me fifty times already! Yes, I know Callum is your alpha and you must obey. I GET IT.

2) Words. The same words. Blood. Blood, blood, blood, blood. BLOOD! I got the point. There is blood. Survive, survive, survive. SURVIVE! Are you saying you want to survive? That's what I assumed.

3) Ideas. Bryn would say something once, then again using different words. THEN A THIRD TIME using more different words. I GET IT. I got it the first time.

The repetition drove me CRAZY. It might have in book form also, but not to this extent.

The story did pick up around the ending of the fourth disc. Which I was very grateful for. And then the ending was rather cool and intriguing and for a few moments I thought about picking up the next in the series. But honestly--even skimming I don't know if I can deal with the repitition if it's anything like this book.

summary:
Adopted by the Alpha of a werewolf pack after a rogue wolf brutally killed her parents right before her eyes, fifteen-year-old Bryn knows only pack life, and the rigid social hierarchy that controls it. That doesn't mean that she's averse to breaking a rule or two.


But when her curiosity gets the better of her and she discovers Chase, a new teen locked in a cage in her guardian's basement, and witnesses him turn into a wolf before her eyes, the horrific memories of her parents' murders return. Bryn becomes obsessed with getting her questions answered, and Chase is the only one who can provide the information she needs.

But in her drive to find the truth, will Bryn push too far beyond the constraints of the pack, forcing her to leave behind her friends, her family, and the identity that she's shaped?