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manyfacets 's review for:
The Fury
by Alex Michaelides
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Quick thoughts:
- I didn't dislike Elliot right off the bat the way a lot of other readers seemed to have. IDK it never seemed like we were supposed to like him, per say. But he was exactly what he was: a little greasy, a little sly, etc.
- Though the like...doubling back and weird apologies about not "being honest" or whatever got kind of tedious by the time we got to the end. Same with the "Lana was truly the loveliest person ever but sometimes not" and like bro: all our friends can be annoying sometimes. Which was also frustrating because it felt like it tipped Michaelides's hand a little too early, a little too easily. Like of course he's an unreliable narrator! He's basically rubbing our noses in it.
- The Russian dolls of twists also got tiresome by the end. The ending didn't pull off as hard as a surprising punch as it seemed like it should have. Maybe because it was third hand information being told by an unreliable narrator? There were some really clever bits in there that, as another reviewer said, might have worked better as a movie rather than as a book, which I kind of agree with. The potential is absolutely there and I do think it'd translate really well to film, but just didn't quite land on its feet here.
- It was missing...passion, tbh. Like I never got the fervor that these sorts of incidents seem like they need. Elliot could have been protesting "too much" about his feelings for Lana, but tbh, although there were little cookie crumb clues that got dropped (did he intentionally set himself up to meet Barbara in an effort to meet Lana? Like that feels like maybe but not solidly enough to really say he did, and I need more than a maybe to say that he's a clever creeper from the start), it never fully committed to a full desperation/longing/planning for me to go, "Oh. My. God."
- Also like, maybe unpopular opinion but
I wouldn't say that Jason and Kathy were any better?? Elliot is creepy and I'm not defending the stalking/note taking/plotting at all because that's awful, but I'm not sure it's really awful enough to team up with Kathy in any way. And Jason might actually be worse than Elliot. Obviously none of these people are good, so maybe everyone got exactly what they deserved.