Elise Perez meets Jamey Hyde on a desolate winter afternoon, fate implodes and neither of their lives will be the same again. Although they are next door neighbours in New Haven, they come from different worlds.

What started out as sexual obsession quickly turns into something that is harder to ignore. The couple move to Manhattan holding to forge Alice together. But Jamey's family intervenes. When a night out with friends takes a shocking turn, Jamey and Elise find themselves fighting for love and their lives.

I really liked the main characters in this book even though they could be frustrating. It certainly mixed my emotions for the young couple. By being upset,disgusted and hopeful. A well written novel of class differences, drugs, friendship and racism.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Crown Publishing and the author Jardine Libaire for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

It started out as a fast paced modern, urban Romeo and Juliet story. It was a quick read and engrossing. Then about 2/3 of the way through it suddenly turning into a bizarre, hysterical anti-drug cred. The couple did not do drugs together, then Jamey"Romeo" had his drink spiked and suddenly went into a crazed psychosis that he never really recovers fully from until perhaps the last few pages. It was like Reefer Madness all over again. I also found it very unrealistic that when he was hospitalized, the doctors refused to take orders from his wife, Elise "Juliet" who would have legally been able to make his decisions for him and instead followed his (legally) estranged family's orders. That is just illogical and incorrect. What his family wished should have had no bearing on his care what so ever, from which hospital he was in to what treatment he recieved. It is a shame because the book had promise but then dissolved into such nonsense it was hard to finish. I won't even get into the fact that they worked low paying jobs yet could afford airfare to India and eating out at near every meal after Jamey disowns his family.

I like the world of this book – a clash of every kind of subculture. Rich and poor, Ivy League educated and a dropout, white culture and minority/mixed race culture. This makes the characters fascinating and the plot, even when it deviates, more interesting. Set in the 1980s it takes advantage of the false sophistication of the time to paint a picture of New Jersey and New York young people.
Elise grew up in a humble environment but knowing there is something else out there, and willing to chase it. She has a “white fur” coat that seems to be a prized possession. Elise has grown up in a tough neighborhood but is attracted to the more upper class lives of privilege.
Jayme is a child of that privilege, growing up wanting for nothing, except the love of his parents. His father is extravagantly wealthy and his mother lives the life of a movie star. When he notices Elise he is drawn to pulling her into his world using sex and passion to fuel what he sees on the surface as friendship but is more like curiosity.
The book is well written but the storyline is a hot mess, sucking the characters into the maw of false meaning and cruel intentions. I like Jardine Libaire’s style of writing and will look for more stories from her tricky mind.

LUSH writing about two people in love and their journey past the first blush of flirtation. The author really loves books, words and characters. You just can tell reading how she loves to write. It was a fun ride and I am glad I got to take it. Thanks to the publisher for the advance copy, really it was a great book. In fact I am going to encourage it as a future read for our book club. That way I have a reason to enjoy it again.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing the ARC galley for this book.

I tried to read it. I really did. I'll give the author props for her writing style. It's quick and keeps details sparse. However, my issue was with the quick development of the obsession for both. They've had one conversation, if it could be called that, and suddenly they're all they think about. Not my cup of tea.

I'll give props to the opening. That was definitely a WTF opening.

I was somewhat annoyed with the main character's early on. I get what the story was trying to be, but couldn't wrap my head around it. Why stay in New York? Go someplace new where you don't know anyone.

It took me awhile to figure out how I felt about this book. It's definitely an interesting take on a love story if you can even call it a love story. At times I was rooting for the couple, at times I was wondering what they even saw in each other. The writing was beautiful and I absolutely loved the setting of 1980's NYC. Other than that, I found myself becoming disinterested in the story and the characters.

The book smartly starts with a flash forward. That's really what kept me going in the story. I wanted to find out what happens to get them to that place. That's really what kept me plodding through to get to the end.

Filled with sleazy sex, foul language, and a cast with a plethora of mental disorders WHITE FUR is definitely a book that some readers will shy away from. As a character study, however, this book is a real killer.

It is the 1980’s and once again a girl from the wrong side of the tracks meets a gorgeous, rich and socially polished guy and they begin an obsessive relationship that is more 50 SHADES OF GREY than the Romeo and Juliet story that some reviewers see it as. She (Elise Perez) runs around in a white rabbit fur coat, hence the title of the tale, is of mixed race, never finished high school and lives in a New Haven apartment with a gay guy who rescued her one cold night and took her under his wing.

He (Jamey Hyde) lives next door with a rather unpleasant school mate named Matt, is a junior at Yale and is the product of a filthy rich family of snobs who are not at all happy with Jamey’s choice in a female companion and do their best to torpedo the blossoming affair.

The story itself is reminiscent of some of those Sandra Dee/Troy Donohue movies of the 50’s or more recently Pretty Woman only this book abjures the schmaltz so prevalent in those scenarios and goes for the throat with its truly gritty depiction of life and love.

I had no idea what to expect when I began this book, and it's safe to say that feeling never ended. White Fur is the story of two people who are worlds apart as far as background goes, but who somehow come together in near apocalyptic ways. This is no boy meets girl, they fall in love and live happily ever after story. It is brutal, and gritty and just plain real. Be prepared for a roller coaster of a read that will leave you breathless at times, hardly daring to turn the page, but at the same time unable to put it down.

The book was a bit slow and heavy getting started, which made me wonder whether I'd make it through, but once it picked up it really took off. So much so, that at times I had to stop reading and almost run away from it, much like Elise did with her past life.

This is not my usual type of book, and I will likely wait awhile before trying a similar one again, but it was well written and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys intense real life relationship stories that aren't afraid to get a bit scruffy and in-your-face.

I was provided with an ARC of White Fur by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

It is a rare thing these days to find an author who so obviously cares about words. In this book the author has done a masterful job of using words not just to tell the story, a Romeo and Juliet type of tale, but also to create the raw, uncomfortable, and often jarring world in which the story takes place. I really didn't like Jamey or Elise - maybe I felt some sympathy for them but that's about it. The story was sort of predictable on one hand and really strange on the other. It was the author's unique telling of the story that kept me engaged, and often amazed, until the end.
Normally I'm all about the story. Just tell it to me and don't waste my time with lots of description, inner dialogue, and local color. I want enough character development that I can understand a character's motivation, but not a psychological evaluation. I most often judge a book based on whether the story itself was both engaging and enomically told. This book was neither. I felt like I was swimming through an ocean of metaphor on every page to find out what was happening to the characters. And yet it was totally mesmerizing. I wanted to put it down, quit reading it, because I just didn't like them or the way their relationship developed. But this book cast some sort of spell. - that's the only way I can think of to describe how hooked I was. The author uses language to create a world that somehow seeps into yours and draws you in. There are plot twists that keep it from following the path you would predict, but to me that was almost irrelevant. The draw in this book is the journey. It will take you out of your reading comfort zone in a great way.

This is not just another Romeo and Juliet knock off. I think the first half of the book really dragged slowly for me but in hindsight it might have been necessary to really give the characters depth and dimension, and the second half picked right up and it was one thing right after another until the end.

What a crazy, terrific book! Being a child of the 1980s, and given the fact that's when this book takes place, nothing captures the essence of White Fur better than these lyrics from the song "Obsession" by Animotion:

You are an obsession
I cannot sleep
I am your possession
Unopened at your feet
There's no balance
No equality
Be still I will not accept defeat
I will have you
Yes, I will have you
I will find a way and I will have you
Like a butterfly
A wild butterfly
I will collect you and capture you
You are an obsession
You're my obsession
Who do you want me to be
To make you sleep with me
You are an obsession
You're my obsession
Who do you want me to be
To make you sleep with me

The moment Elise Perez sets her eyes on Jamey Hyde in their New Haven neighborhood, she knows she wants him. Although they live next door to each other, they couldn't be more different. Elise was raised in housing projects all over Connecticut—she never knew her father, and became familiar with a life of sex, drugs, violence, and neglect all too early. Jamey, on the other hand, is a blue-blooded child of privilege—scion of an influential banking family, heir to a fortune, and son of an unstable film actress. He finds Elise fascinating, sexually alluring, and yet can't figure out why he'd want her in his life.

"But Jamey doesn't want to know her for the same reason that—-(his brain starts fuzzing up here, trying to save him from the thought he's about to think)—for the same reason a farmer isn't close to his animals—it's not supposed to last."

It starts out as purely sex—Jamey doesn't take Elise out on dates or invite her to parties or even over to his house, but Elise knows she has baited the hook and will ultimately reel him in. Elise wants more, wants it all, but it isn't because of Jamey's money or his social standing (which she doesn't really understand at first, anyway), it's because she wants everything—love, sex, companionship, the kind of relationship she's only seen on television and in movies.

"She's always been an outsider. She isn't clearly black or white or Puerto Rican, and the world where she grew up was easier if you were one thing or the other, or if you claimed one thing or the other, which she could have done but never did."

Jamey feels simultaneously drawn to Elise and repelled by his attraction and his growing feelings to her. He knows this isn't what is expected of him, not what he was raised to do, yet the more he realizes he cares for Elise as more than a source of constant sexual fulfillment, the more he becomes enamored of the way it will upset the apple cart of his social circle. He doesn't want anyone to judge him or their relationship, although he doesn't realize exactly how he's treating Elise at the same time. And then his family gets involved, and the whole game changes.

White Fur explores the age-old theme of dating outside your social strata, disobeying your family, and deciding to follow your heart instead of what you've been raised to do. This is a book about how love can change us in ways we want it to, and ways we hope it won't, and whether giving in to those feelings is surrender or the right thing to do. And beyond that, this is a story of whether a love which causes so much trouble is the right love or simply an act of rebellion.

Based on the way the book begins, I was expecting the story to unfold very differently than it did, but I loved the path that Jardine Libaire took her plot down. These characters were fascinating, frustrating, at times even a little repulsive, but I couldn't get enough of them. Even though there are elements you expect, the plot takes many different twists (one which I wasn't quite sure about), and you find yourself rooting for these two to last even if you're not sure whether they will.

Libaire was tremendously attentive to her book's 1980s vibe, and the grittiness of New York City, where much of the book takes place. This is a book that is a little raunchy, a little romantic, a little predictable, but you can't stop reading, because you wonder how the plot will be resolved. Just a surprising, terrific read.

NetGalley and Hogarth provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

I really tried to read this book but after 20% of reading I gave up.

really enjoyed the book. Once I got over the 3rd person presence tense, the book swept me in. I grieved so much for the class issues. Which were the biggest bulk. Really happy about the ending. Felt very avant garde.

Very gritty, bad language, sexual innuendo, too rough for me.

I really, really enjoyed this book. Even after I set it aside at night or to do other things, it stayed with me. It's the kind of book that makes you feel grimy, tired, but invincible all at once, which makes no sense. But, once you start, you get so lost and wrapped up in these characters' minds that it leaves you dazed for a while.

One thing I especially liked was the structure. Beginning the novel with a snippet of the last chapter, in a moment of high intensity, then chronicling the months leading up to that moment, really changed how I read this book. This feeling of dread stayed with me the whole time and I kept looking for signs of what would go so wrong to cause that snippet to happen. It just adds a sense of urgency that made reading the novel even more enjoyable. Overall, I'm just super impressed. This wasn't a book I'd normally read, but I'm glad I did.

A very, very strange love story about a rich boy who is enthralled with a very poor girl and her lifestyle. He's a very sad boy even with all his money. He sees this girl with nothing and how happy she is and he just doesn't understand it. How can she be so happy when she has nothing?

He asks her to be his girlfriend and gives up his money. Maybe together with her, he can find that happiness too.

Then one night, through no choice of his own, his rich friends really mess with his psyche. Will he overcome this?

An interesting love story told in a very unusual way.

Thanks to Crown Publishing and Net Galley for allowing me to read and review this out of the ordinary love story.

White Fur is an interesting spin on the star-crossed lovers trope. This is not a love story that will sweep readers off their feet. Jardine Libaire has written a book that is raw, gritty, and rich in description. It has a dark, melancholic feel to it that stayed with me throughout the book’s entirety. It is oddly alluring and pulled me into the lives of the characters. My curiosity was piqued early on, and I wanted to find out what was going to become of this couple.

Elise Perez is a poor, hardened, uneducated, multiracial young woman who has left her mother and siblings behind to begin a new life for herself. Jamey Hyde is a rich, Ivy League student who was born to an actress and an investment bank magnate. They came from different backgrounds, but ended up living next door to one another in New Haven. There is a curiosity, interest, and attraction that develops quickly between Elise and Jamey that becomes impossible for either of them to ignore. This attraction turns into a sexual relationship that is intense and consuming.

There is something that is appealing about a romance between two unlikely people. While Elise and Jamey were opposites in many ways, they also had similarities. They both wanted to escape the lives that they were born into, and they both wanted to feel and be loved. They both seemed to find refuge in each other, but at the same time, I found their connection and relationship to have an awkward feel to it. The need was there, the desire was there, but there just seemed to be something missing or lacking between them.

White Fur takes readers on a trip back in time to New York City in 1986 and 1987 - a time of excess, glamour, and pop culture. Elise and Jamey were living, breathing, and experiencing life in the big city. During their relationship, they lived large, they struggled, they tried to find their way together. Their relationship was complicated, messy, and full of emotion.

White Fur is a unique story that kept my interest throughout. I never felt truly comfortable while reading it. I felt as though I was peeking through my fingers at something that I shouldn’t be watching but couldn’t look away from. I was unsure of how Elise and Jamey’s story would play out. Despite their feelings, they seemed doomed right from the start.

With every turn of the page, I was left with a sense of foreboding. Could their relationship survive despite all the odds? I had to know how it would all end. The story was moving along at a consistent pace for the majority of the book, but in my opinion, the ending didn’t keep up with the overall feel and tone of the book. While I usually enjoy it when an author is able to pull the proverbial rug out from under me and surprise me with an ending, the ending of White Fur left me feeling empty. With that being said, White Fur was still a compelling read and I would definitely read another book by Jardine Libaire in the future.

*3.5 - 4 Stars

White Fur is a raw, gritty modern romance, but if you're looking for a feel-good love story full of flowers and rainbows - look elsewhere. The relationship between the two main characters, Elise and Jamey, is complicated and disturbing. I would even go as far as to say that is was bordering on obsessive. The book gives a creepy vibe and I felt on edge the entire time I was reading. Although the story starts out slow and never really picks up, it was easy to want to keep reading because I wanted to see how it all played out, especially since the prologue suggests things go downhill at some point. I didn't completely love the book, but I didn't hate it either. I wouldn't suggest this book if you're looking for a heartwarming love story full of sweet sentiments. White Fur is a crude, exhilarating, grungy romance perfect for some readers, but not all.