The Fury by Alex Michaelides
Published by Celadon Books
Publication date: January 16, 2024
Genres: Fiction, Mystery
Bookshop, Amazon
When actress Lana Farrar finds her mood dragged down by London’s dreary weather she does what any of us would, invites her friends for a weekend away on her private Greek island. All right, probably not what we would do, but Alex Michaelides needed a remote backdrop for his new novel, The Fury and what’s better than a private island? Unfortunately, once on the island, old resentments and grievances resurface and someone ends up dead. Michaelides is known for fresh ideas and creative sleights of hand in his novels (The Silent Patient), does he succeed again?
Elliott Chase is The Fury’s wildly unreliable narrator. A playwright and old friend of Lana’s he lays out the weekend’s events and fills in each character’s backstory as it relates to Lana. From his opening sentences he’s clearly unreliable, which I can appreciate, but the endless preening, whining, and self-aggrandization? Not so much. He’s so certain of his importance he freely admits that all events and conversations will be his reconstructions of what he believes occurred.
The easiest way to summarize my response to this novel is using the terminology of one of my favorite Netflix series, The Great British Baking Show, and its infamous Bread Week episodes. The plot’s dough was over-worked and over-proved leaving the The Fury flat and hard to swallow. Michaelides has shown himself to be a strong baker of twisted tales, but here he pushed and manipulated the plot too far to make it go where he wanted it to go.
At 50% I was ready to DNF the book due to a lack of interest, but I powered on. The momentum accelerated significantly, but not in a good way. More in an out-of-control, trainwreck way so that by 80% I noted, “I officially don’t care what happens to any of these people”. Given that the competition in the suspense novel genre is intense, The Fury doesn’t make the cut.
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*I received a free copy of this book from Celadon Books in exchange for an honest review.*
Completely agree!
The kind of book that makes me mad for having read it.
I couldn’t agree with you more. The narrator of this book was odious, and the plot was so tortured I nearly gave up as well. Unfortunately, I stuck it out til the end and wish I had that time back again. The Fury has very nearly put me off the thriller genre completely.
I was the same way. Basically finished it as a hate read. Done with that author.
“Overworked and over-proved”– yes!! Perfect way to describe it. It felt lazy to me, which was disappointing after really enjoying The Silent Patient.
I felt the same way–The Silent Patient was creative. This was just…UGH.
I really did not like his first two books, but I was willing to give this one a try. But I trust your judgement. I don’t think I’ll bother with this one.
Really and truly, don’t bother. There are too many great thrillers out there. Maybe, I need to do a post with my top 10?
That is a great idea!
If you love the British bake off show: you should add this delightful book
Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame by Olivia Ford. Released 2024.
I just finished it yesterday and it was so good!
I just heard about this from someone else and already have it on hold at the library! It sounds perfect!
Sounds dreadful! I’ll miss it.
No, you won’t! You won’t miss it at all. far too many great thrillers out there to read.