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A review by betwixt_the_pages
The Furies by Katie Lowe
3.0
Rating: 3.5/5 Penguins
Quick Reasons: poetic, lyrical prose; characters that felt a bit "doll-like" or indecisive, flighty, wishy-washy; I feel like certain motivations were lacking, or totally unclear; WHY?!
I'm going to be honest, Penguins--this is the second time I'm writing this review, because I forgot to hit CTRL+C on my original version and lost it due to a time-out of the webpage. UUUUUGH. Let's see if I can remember the gist of my points, and maybe make myself a little more clear than I was the first go-round, shall we? This is going to be a shorter review for me, for reasons you'll find below.
The prose in this book is absolutely BREATHTAKING. Poetic, lyrical, atmospheric. Oftentimes, just reading through the pages, I found myself in awe of Katie Lowe's knack for taking a simple sentence and making it into something stunning. The author weaved this from the finest silks of words, each row effortless and without tangles. Her characters, on the other hand, felt little more than shells of people. I say this because I felt like they were lacking in motivation. A lot of this story felt as if it was being written "on the fly" ; I didn't feel as if there were a point, a destination, toward which we were following these girls, but instead some nameless place unknown. Violet, especially, seemed more confused than anything. The few small moments where she followed her own mind or found her own voice, she followed up by being dragged along like a puppet behind the others. If the others weren't around to lead her, she flailed, and did things that were reckless and not what I would have anticipated. She seemed to flounder, a LOT--and that left me confused and unsure exactly who we were following, or how to feel about it. This, coupled with a feeling that these characters and their story needed a little more fleshing out, a little more skin and bones, made it very difficult for me to form any sort of connection.
As much as I enjoyed the journey merely because of the prose and how beautiful the sentences are, I left feeling vaguely disappointed, with no clear or discernible reasons as to why. On top of being unable to form a connection, I felt as if some of the circumstances that arose in these pages, had no real purpose even being there--as if, after writing the novel out, the author felt it lacked drama, and went back and added certain things in. Violet, especially, was as confusing a character as she was confused throughout her tale, thinking one thing and then turning around and doing the complete opposite. Still, Penguins.... The Furies is a read that will enrapture you, if you remember to bring a little magic to your mind while reading.
Quick Reasons: poetic, lyrical prose; characters that felt a bit "doll-like" or indecisive, flighty, wishy-washy; I feel like certain motivations were lacking, or totally unclear; WHY?!
I'm going to be honest, Penguins--this is the second time I'm writing this review, because I forgot to hit CTRL+C on my original version and lost it due to a time-out of the webpage. UUUUUGH. Let's see if I can remember the gist of my points, and maybe make myself a little more clear than I was the first go-round, shall we? This is going to be a shorter review for me, for reasons you'll find below.
"The fact of tragedy, then, is this: we're doomed to hurt the ones we love, faults amplified from fleeting thought to heinous crime. The deadly sins are just that--our furies turning fate, which in turn begets fury at our fallen condition: each the shadow of the other."
The prose in this book is absolutely BREATHTAKING. Poetic, lyrical, atmospheric. Oftentimes, just reading through the pages, I found myself in awe of Katie Lowe's knack for taking a simple sentence and making it into something stunning. The author weaved this from the finest silks of words, each row effortless and without tangles. Her characters, on the other hand, felt little more than shells of people. I say this because I felt like they were lacking in motivation. A lot of this story felt as if it was being written "on the fly" ; I didn't feel as if there were a point, a destination, toward which we were following these girls, but instead some nameless place unknown. Violet, especially, seemed more confused than anything. The few small moments where she followed her own mind or found her own voice, she followed up by being dragged along like a puppet behind the others. If the others weren't around to lead her, she flailed, and did things that were reckless and not what I would have anticipated. She seemed to flounder, a LOT--and that left me confused and unsure exactly who we were following, or how to feel about it. This, coupled with a feeling that these characters and their story needed a little more fleshing out, a little more skin and bones, made it very difficult for me to form any sort of connection.
Our hands left pastel prints in homage across the school: library books with green thumbs, a peach palm around a test tube, blue lips printed on coffee cups and one another's cheeks. The lesson, I suppose (Annabel, the art tutor, rarely leading us to an obvious conclusion--or any conclusion at all) was that the artist leaves her mark on everything she touches.
As much as I enjoyed the journey merely because of the prose and how beautiful the sentences are, I left feeling vaguely disappointed, with no clear or discernible reasons as to why. On top of being unable to form a connection, I felt as if some of the circumstances that arose in these pages, had no real purpose even being there--as if, after writing the novel out, the author felt it lacked drama, and went back and added certain things in. Violet, especially, was as confusing a character as she was confused throughout her tale, thinking one thing and then turning around and doing the complete opposite. Still, Penguins.... The Furies is a read that will enrapture you, if you remember to bring a little magic to your mind while reading.