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Originally posted at The Wandering Fangirl.
In a genre crowded with the same old stories over and over, Fury is a fresh breath of air. Australian writers seem to be kicking ass lately, and I kind of want to move down there just so I can get their books easily because it’s a pain in my ass trying to get them. Fury was hard enough to get, I just want to read and get excited about Gracie Faltrain the way everyone else is, is that so much to ask??
Fury is one of those novels that seemed to grew in popularity solely by word of mouth on Goodreads from many reviews I trust. Though it wasn’t a full five star novel for me, it definitely lived up to the hype and was a fast, enjoyable read. Being immersed in Eliza’s life was like being caught up in Mean Girls, only you actually like Regina and hate Cady. But it’s not just about that.
Eliza isn’t exactly a Mean Girl, but everything about her, from her incredibly rich life and her relationship with her friends to her worries about her social standing, everything about what she stands for is something I instinctively hate. But there’s more to her life than meets the eye, as could be said for anyone. She doesn’t have a father, has a mother who’s barely around, there’s a boy she’s completely confused about, she has to deal with a new girl who joins their pack, and yeah, there’s the whole murder charge thing.
The novel see-saws between Eliza in the police station in the present and flashbacks as she tells the story of how she got there. How she got there was sort of the weakest link of the novel. Eliza is unapologetic about who she is, and it’s refreshing to see that as we learn more about her life and her friends. You could take out the whole murder plot and Fury would still be a great novel with some great insight on Eliza as a character alone. But throw in a thread of plot that grows larger as the flashbacks move on, and things kind of start to fall apart – both for Eliza, and for the reader. At least, for me it did.
The reason for the murder and the way it plays out makes sense, and I won’t give anything away, but it almost felt too safe. I wanted Eliza to be an unapologetic murderer just because she could be, you know? I wanted Fury to feel a little more unsure, I wanted it to make me feel a little less comfortable. I wanted some CRAZINESS, man.
I absolutely loved everything else about Fury, that aside. The insight on Eliza’s friendships, her strange relationship with her childhood friend Nick, the even meaner Mean Girls and the social politics of her school, it’s all fantastic. Shirley Marr’s written a smart, intelligent book that somehow manages to make me like the hell out of Eliza Boans and want to root for her even though, you know, she killed someone.
That’s talent.
In a genre crowded with the same old stories over and over, Fury is a fresh breath of air. Australian writers seem to be kicking ass lately, and I kind of want to move down there just so I can get their books easily because it’s a pain in my ass trying to get them. Fury was hard enough to get, I just want to read and get excited about Gracie Faltrain the way everyone else is, is that so much to ask??
Fury is one of those novels that seemed to grew in popularity solely by word of mouth on Goodreads from many reviews I trust. Though it wasn’t a full five star novel for me, it definitely lived up to the hype and was a fast, enjoyable read. Being immersed in Eliza’s life was like being caught up in Mean Girls, only you actually like Regina and hate Cady. But it’s not just about that.
Eliza isn’t exactly a Mean Girl, but everything about her, from her incredibly rich life and her relationship with her friends to her worries about her social standing, everything about what she stands for is something I instinctively hate. But there’s more to her life than meets the eye, as could be said for anyone. She doesn’t have a father, has a mother who’s barely around, there’s a boy she’s completely confused about, she has to deal with a new girl who joins their pack, and yeah, there’s the whole murder charge thing.
The novel see-saws between Eliza in the police station in the present and flashbacks as she tells the story of how she got there. How she got there was sort of the weakest link of the novel. Eliza is unapologetic about who she is, and it’s refreshing to see that as we learn more about her life and her friends. You could take out the whole murder plot and Fury would still be a great novel with some great insight on Eliza as a character alone. But throw in a thread of plot that grows larger as the flashbacks move on, and things kind of start to fall apart – both for Eliza, and for the reader. At least, for me it did.
The reason for the murder and the way it plays out makes sense, and I won’t give anything away, but it almost felt too safe. I wanted Eliza to be an unapologetic murderer just because she could be, you know? I wanted Fury to feel a little more unsure, I wanted it to make me feel a little less comfortable. I wanted some CRAZINESS, man.
I absolutely loved everything else about Fury, that aside. The insight on Eliza’s friendships, her strange relationship with her childhood friend Nick, the even meaner Mean Girls and the social politics of her school, it’s all fantastic. Shirley Marr’s written a smart, intelligent book that somehow manages to make me like the hell out of Eliza Boans and want to root for her even though, you know, she killed someone.
That’s talent.