Review: Fury by Elizabeth Miles

Posted by Jessi (Geo) on December 13, 2012 | 0 Comments


Review: Fury by Elizabeth MilesFury by Elizabeth Miles
Series: The Fury Trilogy
Published by Simon Pulse (8.30.2011)
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Young Adult
Format: Hardcover, 370 pages
Source: I own it
Buy on Amazon


1.5 Stars

It’s winter break in Ascension, Maine. The snow is falling and everything looks pristine and peaceful. But not all is as it seems...

Between cozy traditions and parties with her friends, Emily loves the holidays. And this year’s even better—the guy she’s been into for months is finally noticing her. But Em knows if she starts things with him, there’s no turning back. Because his girlfriend is Em’s best friend.

On the other side of town, Chase is having problems of his own. The stress of his home life is starting to take its toll, and his social life is unraveling. But that’s nothing compared to what’s really haunting him. Chase has done something cruel...something the perfect guy he pretends to be would never do. And it’s only a matter of time before he’s exposed.

In Ascension, mistakes can be deadly. And three girls—three beautiful, mysterious girls—are here to choose who will pay. Em and Chase have been chosen.

 

My thoughts

Oh lord. Honestly, I’m not sure how I even finished this book. Morbid curiosity? The need to see liars and cheaters have everything blow up in their faces? Who knows. But somehow I managed to stick it through to the end.

So, the characters. Good God. I don’t think I’ve ever met so many characters I wanted to flog in one single book. So many vapid, shallow characters!
We’ll start with Em. I despised her. With the fire of a thousand suns. I found myself frequently hoping that she would be eaten by a very large and angry bear. Em’s best friend is Gabby, and Gabby’s boyfriend is Zach. And guess who else is, like, madly in love with him? Yep. Em was pining for HER BEST FRIEND’S BOYFRIEND. Okay, could be worse, you say. Because it’s alright to look at claimed goods as long as you don’t touch. Well, this is where the problem starts. As soon as Gabby leaves for vacation, Em is all over that shiz. In fact, she’s excited to be alone with her biffle’s piece of meat. She primps for Zach, buys freaking lingerie for him. Says ‘nothing is wrong with a little harmless flirtation. Everybody flirts.’ Right. But then she threw herself (literally, seriously) at Zach and they proceeded to make out voraciously. Real f*cking classy.
Then there was the rationalizing, like saying, ‘We can’t keep doing this’ or ‘I know I need to break it off,’ but then they’d just keep doing it. And Em got pissed at JD when he found out and told her it was wrong.
‘So you can just go home and just – just – look down on me without even understanding the situation.’
Um? You’re hooking up with your best friend’s boyfriend. What more is there to understand? Idiot.

What gets me is, Em KNEW what she was doing was wrong, and that it would hurt Gabby. But she still did it. All in all, Em disgusted me. The way she acted regarding Zach made me want to throttle her until her eyeballs popped out. She seriously got jealous about him being with another girl – um, hellooo, you’re the other girl too. If he’s two-timing one female, he’s probably two-timing you, too, genius.
‘C u soon I hope,’ he wrote, signing off with a smiley face. Em melted. She was right – Zach did want her as bad as she wanted him.
Because sending someone a smiley face totally means you’re in love with them. *eye roll* And then mentions a little later that she was ‘still floating’ from the message. Please excuse me while I blow groceries.
Oh, and this:
Em blushed and her heart sped up to a hum. You don’t text a girl on Christmas Eve unless you’re really into her.

YOU, MA’AM, ARE THE STUPIDEST FEMALE IN THE LONG, SAD EXISTENCE OF STUPID FEMALES. Go play in traffic.

Chase wasn’t much better. He was from a poor background, sure, but he was just as shallow. I’m talking quarterback type that stares at himself in the mirror, flexing his biceps and pecs with a cheesy smile and a wink. He’s on a mission to find the ‘perfect girl’ for a date to….something, I don’t even remember what it was anymore and honestly don’t care. Cuz, ya know, you can totally find the perfect mate in a matter of days, searching drunken parties. Brilliant. He acted just plain desperate, it was rather pathetic.
Then he meets Ty. She’s gorgeous, so of course he just HAS to have her. Nevermind that he doesn’t know her at all, doesn’t know whether she’s actually got a personality that’s worth it or not.

Zach was even worse. For one, the cheating. For two, this: ‘I like being with you. You’re great. I just…I also like being with her. It’s kind of like how I play basketball, football, and soccer. I like them all. You know?’

 
I think part of the reason I kept reading was to see things blow up in the cheaters’ faces. I wanted to see Gabby dump them both. And in a way, I was satisfied. Zach wasn’t at all what Em thought. But when she found that out, she jumped right on to JD. Which pissed me off. She didn’t want to have anything to do with him while Zach was around, and then all the sudden she decides she ‘loves’ him and has ‘loved’ him all along? Are you f*cking kidding me? And mentions how ‘right’ it feels…um, you said that about Zach. 20 pages ago. Like I said: Stupid, desperate female. She puts all females to shame. 

Other than that, some of the happenings were just absurd. Such as, Chase parked and went somewhere, and when he came back, there was mysteriously roadkill by his car. And feral cats came up and started ‘playing with it, poking it, picking at it.’ (First of all, how do cats ‘poke’ something?) Then one tore off a piece of meat and came toward Chase with it as an offering. So he tried to kick the cat and screamed at it to leave him alone. And he left. I just found this scene to be ridiculous.
Another one: Ty and Chase have a paint fight, flinging paint at each other….in the nude. Uhhh? So it sounds kinky, and okay I admit it, I kinda wanna try it…but it was just a bit strange in the circumstances. I mean, Chase didn’t know Ty, at all. Getting naked, painting each other, and taking nude pictures isn’t something you’d do with someone you just met (not me, anyway, I guess?). And what is something like that doing in a YA novel anyway?
Yet another: Em sees a girl that claimed to have been ‘hit by a car.’ Yet, said girl can stand up and walk without limping, and doesn’t have a scratch on her. Um? How would you not think something is wrong about that situation? Em was ridiculously gullible.

The premise could have been good without being dragged down by pointless scenes and stab-worthy characters (I know that was kinda the point, as it’s about people getting what they give, but still). I feel like the major turn toward the end should have been closer to the beginning or halfway through, cutting out all that useless filler that dragged down the story. More should have been happening with the Furies rather than droning on and on about Em’s silly feelings and high school drama and normal everyday happenings. Fifty pages of that would have been one thing, but two hundred and fifty? A little much for me. I was starting to wonder if this book was about cheating rather than Furies. They were just sort of thrown in at the end, with a very short and lacking explanation of what they were. I would liked to have seen much more focus on them and their background. They were important – the whole point of the story – yet had an extremely small part (except maybe for Ty).

The thing is, the writing wasn’t all that bad. The prologue was fabulous, and if the rest of the book had been like that, I probably would have really enjoyed this one. I feel like Miles’ talent was sorta wasted. I may try the next book, just to see if there’s a more developed and purposeful plot. And better characters.

If you want a story about drama and cheating, this is right up your alley. But if you’re looking for a story about Furies and revenge, you may want to skip the first 250 pages. Trust me, you’re not missing much. 

Overall Assessment

Plot: 1/5
Writing style: 3/5
Originality: 3.5/5
Characters: 1/5
World-building: 1/5
Pace: 2/5
Cover: 4/5
Overall rating: 1.5/5

Jessi (Geo)

Posted in: Book Reviews | Tags: , , , , , ,

Subscribe to Novel Heartbeat to get more posts like this!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.