Book: The Fury
Author: Alex Michaelides
Publisher: Celadon
Year: 2023
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “This is a tale of murder. Or maybe that’s not quite true. At it’s heart, it’s a love story, isn’t it?
Lana Farrar is a reclusive ex-movie star and one of the most famous women in the world. Every year, she invites her closet friends to escape the English weather and spend Easter on her idyllic private Greek island.
I tell you this because you may think you know this story. You probably read about it at the time – it caused a real stir in the tabloids, if you remember. It had all of the necessary ingredients for a press sensation: a celebrity, a private island cut off by the wind…and a murder.
We found ourselves trapped there overnight. Our old friendships concealed hatred and a desire for revenge. What followed was a game of cat and mouse – a battle of wits, full of twists and turns, building to an unforgettable climax. The night ended in violence and death.
But who am I?
My name is Elliot Chase, and I’m going to tell you a story nine any you’ve ever heard.”

Review : When I requested an ARC of The Fury, I didn’t realize it was by an author whose work I’d previously reviewed before. If you’ve been here for a while, you may remember when I reviewed The Maidens and gave it a withering 2 out of 5 stars (though I don’t check GoodReads for reviews, I know several others who read and disliked the execution of The Maidens), The Fury was written by none other than Maidens author, Alex Michaelides. Now, we already know I serve some hot takes on this blog, which is largely why I choose not to check other reviewers opinions prior to writing my own, but I was fairly astonished to find that The Maidens has been optioned into a television series by Mirimax. Small rant aside, I was grateful to get into a new book after trudging through my last review copy, and while The Fury didn’t garner more than 2.5 stars, in my opinion, it was at least a compelling read.

A few things right off the bat really started to rub me the wrong way, contributing at least in part to my 50% positive review. First of all, The Fury is narrated by a singular character who I found immediately off-putting. It’s possible that was Michaelides intention, but given the number of twists and turns throughout the book and the sheer effort he took to convince the reader that the narrator, Elliot, was someone they should be sympathetic to, leads me to believe that it wasn’t at all. Elliot is instantly pretentious and annoying, someone I had zero interest in reading through the eyes of for an entire book, which was unfortunate given that he was exactly who we’d spend the entire book reading through. Rather than laying out exactly who each character in the story was, what their relationship might have been, and allowing us to simply come to the conclusion that Elliot was an unreliable narrator, he began almost immediately by interjecting his own telling of the story to make cheeky comments about how much he’d tried to keep his own opinions out of the story but obviously hadn’t. There’s no room for the reader to do any work, Elliot does it all for us. Rather than reading and inferring, assuming the reader will be smart enough to come to their own conclusions, Michaelides treats us like we’re too dumb to read critically and tells us what’s going on. Personally, I take offense to this style and find it pandering at best, patronizing at worst.

The Fury, set on a remote Greek island, centers around Elliot’s friend and so-called soul mate of a friend, Lana Farrar. Through a series of twists and turns, Elliot convinces Lana to confront both her husband and best friend when she finds out they’ve been having an affair. What happens when she does, however, is a twisted nightmare of toxic relationships, bad choices, and manipulation. However, as we read through the book, we come to find that we’re getting only a fraction of the story from Elliot, revealing only tidbits of information to lead the reader down a path of his own design – which, had it been executed well, would have been intriguing and maybe even exciting to read. However, like I mentioned before, Elliot tells us right from the beginning that he’s an unreliable narrator and it was within the first chapter that I had already solved the murder.

Spoilers Ahead

The question, though, is which murder did I solve? Because this damn book has so many plot twists – arguably TOO many – that it isn’t until we reach the end that we find out who really died and who really murdered them. But, good news for me, the murder I solved in chapter one was, in fact, both the correct murder and correct murderer. Bad news for Michaelides.

When it comes to a murder mystery, or a murder retelling I suppose, in this case, I don’t want plot twist after plot twist after plot twist. I want a singular twist that I can’t see coming from a mile away. I feel so strongly that had Michaelides trusted us as an audience, I would not have seen the murderer coming from the jump. It would have been more interesting, better executed, and a surprise to read. Instead, it became contrived and boring. Michaelides had an infuriating habit of leaving each chapter on an ambiguous teaser, which I don’t mind if done appropriately and sparingly, but when you end every. single. chapter. with words like “He was just a kid, playing make-believe. And kids shouldn’t play with guns.” (59) it not only loses its impact but it loses its appeal. There were so many reasons for me to genuinely dislike this book, it’s hard to cram them all into a single review, but I think I’ve covered the most grievous here. It was compelling, I’ll give Michaelides that much, I kept turning pages, but it was a poor book. And for that I give it 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Advice : Sigh. I suppose if you enjoyed The Maidens you might actually enjoy The Fury. If, however, you don’t enjoy being patronized or a mystery you can solve from the very beginning, I don’t think this will be the one for you. It’s probably worth checking out from the library if you’re curious about it, but by no means should you waste money on this one.