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carlack7's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Bullying, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Gun violence, and Alcohol
Minor: Child abuse and Pedophilia
minimicropup's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
I loved everything about this. Light-hearted until it wasn’t. Lines imprinted on my mind.
Energy: Vigilant. Sanguine. Ruthless.
Scene: 🇬🇷 🇬🇧 Private island near Mykonos, Greece; pubs and homes in London, UK.
Perspective: Our narrator is telling us the about their friend group and what occurred on their most recent visit to their friend’s island getaway weekend.
🐩 Tail Wags: The layering of light over-the-top drama with moments of depth and check-ins with the reader. The scheming, fake-outs, drama, back-tracking plot. Our morally grey narrator who I alternately felt horrified by and heart-broken for. The peripheral character arcs and development.
----
🧐 Random Thoughts:
Energy: Vigilant. Sanguine. Ruthless.
Scene: 🇬🇷 🇬🇧 Private island near Mykonos, Greece; pubs and homes in London, UK.
Perspective: Our narrator is telling us the about their friend group and what occurred on their most recent visit to their friend’s island getaway weekend.
🐩 Tail Wags: The layering of light over-the-top drama with moments of depth and check-ins with the reader. The scheming, fake-outs, drama, back-tracking plot. Our morally grey narrator who I alternately felt horrified by and heart-broken for. The peripheral character arcs and development.
----
🧐 Random Thoughts:
- If you are struggling to get immersed in the story and not feeling the feels, it could be hard to stay engaged.
- If you never feel empathy, sympathy (or even pity) for the narrator and dislike spending time with unlikeable characters this may be a struggle.
- Hard to read with long or frequent breaks. The way the story is presented works better when you remember which Act you’re in and are fresh off the previous one.
- If you’re an overanalyzer like me, hold off on that ‘til the end!
🎬 Tale-Telling: Direct, lyrical writing style. The story starts in the middle of the action.
👥 Characters: Complex. Manipulative but empathetic though I could be persuaded otherwise.
🤓 Reader Role: Meeting for a drink with the narrator who has a story to tell and being their anchor.
🗺️ World-Building: Atmospheric weather, sensory and visual details; cultural and emotional landscapes; body language and reactions.
🔥 Fuel: Who is our narrator? Who died? How? Why? Who did it? What will happen to everyone on the island?
📖 Cred: Emotionally hyper-realistic, situationally plausible with a touch of exaggeration for effect.
🚙 Journey: Quick drink with a potential friend turns into hours of sipping the tea with moments of reflection and soul searching.
----
Mood Reading Match-Up:
- Spring. Wind. Waves. Sea birds. Clinking plates. Laughter. Whispers. Applause.
- Friendship-relationship drama murder mystery in an isolated setting where all is not as it seems
- Machiavellianism with Heart
Content Heads-Up: Gun use and violence. Bullying (recall; descriptive). Infidelity (brief; not sexually descriptive; on and off page). Alcohol use (partying, intoxicated; on page). Alcoholism (brief, recall; off page). Child abuse and parental neglect (brief recall; descriptive). Homelessness, financial insecurity (brief recall; descriptive). Sexual exploitation (implied; off page). Animal death (
Rep: Cisgender. Heterosexual. White British and American. Greek characters and experiences.
📚 Format: Paperback
🤩 Potential Fav of 2024
My musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶 refined with my AI bookworm buddy ✨
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence and Bullying
Moderate: Infidelity and Alcohol
Minor: Murder, Blood, and Alcoholism
karly_ackley's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Murder, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Infidelity, Mental illness, and Alcohol
miggyfool's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Stalking, Alcoholism, Bullying, Death of parent, Classism, Alcohol, Blood, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Sexism, Suicide attempt, Adult/minor relationship, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Gun violence, Infidelity, Misogyny, Body horror, Drug use, Addiction, Drug abuse, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic friendship
honeybeewitched87's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Grief, Alcohol, Gun violence, Infidelity, Murder, Death, Gaslighting, Drug use, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, Violence, Blood, and Stalking
Minor: Sexual content
afterplague's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
I read the Silent Patient, and I enjoyed it, so when I saw another book by Alex Michaelides I was definitely excited to give it a read. I think unfortunately The Fury and I just didn't connect with each other. The reader is warned explicitly that this is not a whodunit murder mystery, so if that's what you're expecting I would advise you to avoid this book. What is doesn't warn you, however, is that it's structured like a play.
Our narrator is a playwright and the book is separated into acts, which is a style I've seen in other books (specifically If We Were Villains). However, The Fury handles this a little differently where is also incorporates the structure of scenes within a play. Each chapter is unbearably short, only two or four pages usually, and this made it impossible to sink into the narrative. There's a reason people usually watch plays and don't read them. In a novel, this choice is extremely misguided.
There are good elements to it, but I don't think the structure contributes to the story at all. I don't really recommend The Fury for that, and many other reasons.
I'm going to go into more detail below, so please beware of spoilers.
Our narrator, Elliot, is insufferable. He's pretentious, snobby, and so present throughout the first few chapters. He's so irritating I had to put the book down and SLEEP to relax before I could continue. This is the point of his character. He's an obnoxious writer who found immense success for a play he wrote. He's got friends in high places now and slots into their friend group even though he doesn't really fit in. Elliot speaks often of loving one's inner child and having empathy for oneself because all our worst actions come from that inner child attempting to avoid pain.
Elliot's whole life is a lie.
Elliot isn't even his real name. He didn't write the play that made him famous, and he murdered the old woman who did. He's a narcissistic "nice guy" who believes that his best friend should have married him instead of her husband. All his friends dislike him and find him annoying, and they're right. He's a stalker and a manipulator and the entire novel is his attempt to manipulate the reader into being on his side of the horrible events he planned.
His character does kind of work, and he's explored well, as is Lana. She's the center of all his obsessions. The other characters don't achieve very much depth, but they are all still memorable and have their own parts in the plot.
The twist is both shocking and not at the same time. I had predicted that Elliot was not a good man, but I didn't predict the way the plot would shake out in the last fifty pages. I liked the twist, but the author has this horrible habit where anytime something exciting is happening he immediately takes you away into an EXTENDED series of flashbacks and explanations and diatribes about human nature. It kills the pacing of the story incredibly. I can understand why that was done on a practical level, that this is a story about the characters and not the events, so we need to flash back to learn more about the characters. However, 80-85% of this book is just those long winded character explanations.
The structure is a real problem. We continuously return to the same moments to see them from different characters perspectives with new knowledge, but I don't think it's justified. The plot of this story is a tangled yarn ball and I get a headache just thinking about it. The writing is also pretentious and odd. The descriptions are fine for the most part, but Elliot is not a great writing, and I'm not sure if the writing I don't like is Elliot or Alex Michaelides.
It's supposed to feel like a Greek tragedy, and it succeeds in some ways, but it just feels so pretentious, smug, and self-satisfied that I couldn't enjoy it. I suppose I would recommend this book if you're interested in the way stories can play with structure. I'm just not sure I enjoyed it.
Our narrator is a playwright and the book is separated into acts, which is a style I've seen in other books (specifically If We Were Villains). However, The Fury handles this a little differently where is also incorporates the structure of scenes within a play. Each chapter is unbearably short, only two or four pages usually, and this made it impossible to sink into the narrative. There's a reason people usually watch plays and don't read them. In a novel, this choice is extremely misguided.
There are good elements to it, but I don't think the structure contributes to the story at all. I don't really recommend The Fury for that, and many other reasons.
I'm going to go into more detail below, so please beware of spoilers.
Our narrator, Elliot, is insufferable. He's pretentious, snobby, and so present throughout the first few chapters. He's so irritating I had to put the book down and SLEEP to relax before I could continue. This is the point of his character. He's an obnoxious writer who found immense success for a play he wrote. He's got friends in high places now and slots into their friend group even though he doesn't really fit in. Elliot speaks often of loving one's inner child and having empathy for oneself because all our worst actions come from that inner child attempting to avoid pain.
Elliot's whole life is a lie.
Elliot isn't even his real name. He didn't write the play that made him famous, and he murdered the old woman who did. He's a narcissistic "nice guy" who believes that his best friend should have married him instead of her husband. All his friends dislike him and find him annoying, and they're right. He's a stalker and a manipulator and the entire novel is his attempt to manipulate the reader into being on his side of the horrible events he planned.
His character does kind of work, and he's explored well, as is Lana. She's the center of all his obsessions. The other characters don't achieve very much depth, but they are all still memorable and have their own parts in the plot.
The twist is both shocking and not at the same time. I had predicted that Elliot was not a good man, but I didn't predict the way the plot would shake out in the last fifty pages. I liked the twist, but the author has this horrible habit where anytime something exciting is happening he immediately takes you away into an EXTENDED series of flashbacks and explanations and diatribes about human nature. It kills the pacing of the story incredibly. I can understand why that was done on a practical level, that this is a story about the characters and not the events, so we need to flash back to learn more about the characters. However, 80-85% of this book is just those long winded character explanations.
The structure is a real problem. We continuously return to the same moments to see them from different characters perspectives with new knowledge, but I don't think it's justified. The plot of this story is a tangled yarn ball and I get a headache just thinking about it. The writing is also pretentious and odd. The descriptions are fine for the most part, but Elliot is not a great writing, and I'm not sure if the writing I don't like is Elliot or Alex Michaelides.
It's supposed to feel like a Greek tragedy, and it succeeds in some ways, but it just feels so pretentious, smug, and self-satisfied that I couldn't enjoy it. I suppose I would recommend this book if you're interested in the way stories can play with structure. I'm just not sure I enjoyed it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Toxic friendship, and Gun violence
Moderate: Gaslighting and Murder
hesticht's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence and Murder
Minor: Alcohol
efulton's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
The first third of this book was a bit slower but the last two thirds more than made up for it. Definitely worth a read!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent and Death
Minor: Blood, Alcohol, and Alcoholism
syvanahlouise's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Murder, Drug use, Drug abuse, and Alcohol
missgrangerr's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Felt there is a lot of things we’re mentioned in passing throughout the book which were never called back to or elaborated on that would have made for a better story. Ending felt rushed, unimaginative, and lackluster.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Blood, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, Gun violence, Murder, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Stalking, Violence, Child abuse, and Abandonment
Minor: Animal death