Monday 23 April 2012

Fury by Elizabeth Miles


Synopsis

Em loves the winter holidays. And this year, things are really looking up:  the guy she’s been into for months has finally noticed her. But if she starts something with him, there’s no turning back. Because he’s going out with her best friend.
On the other side of town, Chase’s home life is stressful and his social life’s unraveling. But that’s nothing compared to what’s really haunting him. For 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.
Mistakes can be deadly. And three beautiful, mysterious girls are about to make them pay …




My review
When I read the synopsis of the book I clearly wasn’t prepared for what I would find in there.
Fury is a book with an unexpected dimension about deadly mistakes, revenge and saving what you love the most.

The book is written in two different perspectives:
Emily Winter, a young girl who seems to have it all. An intact family, money, good grades in school, a best friend and a high status at school. 
Chase singer is a boy who didn’t grow up with all those opportunities.  He lives in a trailer park with his mother and ‘fights’ his way up on the status scale. He’s the quarterback of the football team, the best friend of Zach, the most popular guy in the school. Chase successfully establishes himself in school. He does what he wants and no one say anything about it. Through his behaviour he wants to hide his broken background.

Since the book has two viewpoints you get a closer look at the events and some parts are more understandable. You get dragged in, in a world of lies and uncertain events.
I enjoyed getting to know Chase and Emily a little and see everything from each of their own perspectives.
My first reaction when I read the first two chapters: Why would you want to read the story from the perspective of Chase when he’s  ‘just’ the best friend of Zach, who clearly deserves a bigger part because he’s involved in so many little things. After a few more pages it all became clear.
Even though Chase is a very unlikeable person you start to understand his actions and see through them. He wants to be in the ‘IN-Crowd’ for all the wrong reasons and yet you totally understand it. He has his own little story, which is runs throughout the book and reveals some unexpected things.

The book starts with the death of Sasha Bowlder who apparently committed suicide. Since that day strange things have started to happen.
Sasha had been a childhood friend of Chase’s but when her mother married a wealthy man everything had changed between them and Chase is suddenly all alone.  That’s when he decided to do something.
He joined the football team, became friends with Zach and from that moment, he had had everything he ever wanted. He was IN! He had friends, girls and success. But the day Sasha Bowlder fell from the bridge it all started to fall apart.
Although you can’t imagine it getting worse, it does. Chase meets a mysterious girl, Ty and two girls who claim to be her cousins. He starts to spend a lot of time with her and gets into one misadventure after the other. It’s clearly all Ty’s fault and as I read the book I started to get really annoyed with her because I couldn’t understand why she would do such stupid things to Chase and why he would forgive her every time. The good aspect is that you never really get to know Ty and she’s still mysterious at the end of the book, which makes you anxious to read the sequel.
Will you find out more about her and her ‘cousins’? Why is she doing this?

Emily never intended to hurt her best friend Gabby, but Zach did all those sweet things to and with her and she couldn’t resist. While Gabby spends her winter holidays abroad with her parents, Emily and Zach start an affair which ends when Emily finally realises that Zach is just playing a game and making empty promises. The friendship between Em and Gabby suffers from this incident but slowly finds its way back.
But that’s not Emily’s only problem. It seems that someone is following her and there’s always the red orchid that seems to be there out of nowhere. What does that mean?
Throughout the unsettling time Emily’s male best friend JD is always with her. And guess what? – Yes, she suddenly has feelings for him! She opens her eyes and there he is ..
I think that this relationship kind of takes out the tension in a bad way.  You see it coming the first page he is mentioned. I was a little disappointed because I really liked the idea of Chase and Em together.
They are really getting along while they help each other through their misery.  Em gets to know the real Chase a little bit and in the end I think you can call them friends.
The furies (Ty, Ali and Meg) are here for a reason: To pass on a really important message, but will the receiver gets it?

I have a really divided opinion about the book.
On the one hand I wished there would’ve been more! More excitement, more build-up to a scene and more darkness. I think this book needs a clear direction.  It’s neither horror nor a romantic love story.
It’s in-between and I guess that’s what bothers me. You keep waiting for the big thing but it never comes.
 Also there were a few weak conversations.
Zach, that was Gabby. We have to be careful. She could have heard you! I mean, do you understand how crushed she would be if she had any idea what we were doing right now?”
[…]
“Em, yeah. We talked about this. No need for Gabby to know about us.”
On the other hand I really liked reading it. It was an easy book and everything made sense by the end. I like that there are still secrets and surprises at the end (though there not that big and you kind of see them coming) and even unresolved problems so that a little tension is still there and you kind of want to read the next book.
For a first book it’s a great idea and I hope that the story about the Furies is better explained in the sequel.
There’s one thing we can learn from this story: Our time is limited and we should be careful with our actions and our words because they might affect others.
So, if you want to try out something new than just the everyday YA books than it’s a good choice but I wouldn’t have overly high expectations.