The Furies is one of those books that makes you fall in love with reading all over again. Beautifully written, enticingly told, it is a story that makes you lose yourself in it in a childish sort of surrender. At times overwrought in its descriptions (there are many ‘sickly sweet and cloying’ smells throughout), it is this precisely these details that heavy atmosphere that lingered over me far after I had finished the book.

The book is narrated by Violet Taylor, now an adult, looking back at her sixteen-year-old self. After an accident kills her father and sister, and leaves her mother lost in the past, Violet is admitted to the elite Elm Hollow Academy. There she meets the people who will change her life — Robin, the alluring girl who seemingly has it all, and her two friends, Alex and Grace, as well as Annabel, the school’s art teacher. To both her surprise and delight, Violet becomes part of Annabel’s advanced class. Meeting late at night and comprising only of the four girls, the class explores myth and literature, the friendships, loves, furies, and vengeances of women widely discussed in the context of the Greeks. Heady with a newfound sense of belonging, Violet becomes tangled in Robin’s web of life — her friendships, relationships, and memories of Emily Frost, Robin’s last best friend. The mystery and fallout of Emily’s disappearance hang over Violet’s exploration of her new life.

The Furies has been compared to The Secret History, and while I still haven’t found a book that stands against Donna Tartt’s, the reference is well deserved. Some suspension of disbelief is required, but Katie Lowe has given me what I’d hoped to find in Carol Goodman’s The Lake of Dead Languages, and the friendships are somewhat reminiscent of those in A Great and Terrible Beauty. Blending academia, suspense, and the phantasmic fury of female friendships, The Furies will haunt you to the end and beyond. Be sure to check it out in October — and a huge thank you to NetGalley for providing an advance copy!

A group of girls at a private boarding school known to be a site of witch trials. There is an "advanced class" taught by one of the teachers. She tries to persuade the girls that hey clash isn't about rituals, just mythology. Violet, the newest member, doesn't know what she's getting into. She's manipulated by Robin-who has a fascination with trying to bring The Furies- ancient witches about to help do harm to guys who do the girls wrong.
The girls do unspeakable things and Violet never stands up for herself. I kept waiting for her to step up and do something, but she never did.
I was expecting more of a witchy vibe and witchy rituals in this book than I got.
Thanks to Jordan and St. Martin's Press for this early copy on Netgalley.

I feel like this book had a lot of potential. It had a good storyline but it fell a little flat for me. It got very redundant but the parts that weren't were pretty good.

***Thank you to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of THE FURIES by Katie Lowe in exchange for my honest review.***

A year after the death of her father and sister, Violet enrolls at an exclusive English girls’ school with a history dating back to witchcraft. Toxic friendships. Ancient rituals. Mythology. Magic. Supernatural? The power of suggestion?

THE FURIES has one of the best covers I’ve seen in recent memory. The cover alone should sell thousands of copies. That alone made me want to read the book. From the blurb I assumed the book was YA. The intro felt more like literary fiction. From chapter one on, I wasn’t certain what genre I was reading. I don’t believe books need to fall into specific categories, but classification sets my expectations. If I’m in the mood for a YA book, I usually don’t want to be ensconced in literary fiction. I’m not looking for a light humorous book when I read literary fiction. I know that other readers are less anal.

I had a hard time connecting to Violet. I wanted to know more about who she was before the accident, what her family was like etc. I wanted to feel some emotion in and about her and see some personality.

THE FURIES gave me neither for whom I could root or a plot/mystery I was engaged in enough to care about the conclusion. I didn’t feel much of a payoff. If THE FURIES wasn’t an ARC, I would not have finished.

I do think THE FURIES will have a niche of readers, perhaps even a larger group of fans, who will enjoy the book very much.

I was really hoping for a vaguely literary retelling of The Craft, all cool powerful girls who are inherently themselves until the one with the crazy eyes and angry teeth takes things too far and things get weird. What I got instead was a dripping wet tale of the occasionally remarkable, likely coincidental, and inexplicably dull. The main character is boring, her friendships, to whatever extent they exist, are based wholly on convenience, and the tension is about as thick as the air atop Everest.

2 stars--it was OK. Warnings for sexual assault.

The good: This book is set in a girls' school, which I love, and includes a small secret society of students that study women in Classic literature. Awesome! It has a touch of the supernatural, and the overall theme--unstable, witchy teenage girls getting revenge on the (mostly) men who wronged them--is fascinating. Also, this is a quick read.

The bad: If you want to read about girls' toxic friendships, Megan Abbott does it better. If you're interested in students doing creepy Greek rituals, nothing tops The Secret History. In other words, this felt derivative. Also, it bothered me that there were no consequences for any of the actions in this book--no one even feels particularly bad about some pretty awful things they do. (Being vague to avoid spoilers!) There's no real police or school investigation, despite multiple mysterious deaths. It was harder to suspend my disbelief over this than over the supernatural elements! And what happened to the (view spoiler)? That also really bothers me.

I received this review copy from the publisher on NetGalley. Thanks for the opportunity to read and review; I appreciate it!

I love a good boarding school book. Add in a mystery and I’m hooked. This novel, however, leaned a little too much towards horror for my tastes and the plot was simplistic.

I've seen The Craft. I didn't need to read it... This wasn't at all what the blurb led me to expect. I might have been alright with it if the description had reflected the content more accurately - there's nothing wrong with it, it reads well enough it just wasn't what I would normally choose or was expecting. As a result I went into it with different expectations and was frustrated from the get go and it never came back from that for me...

I received an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review

I mean, “The Craft” already exists so none of this was necessary. Whatever compared this to “The Secret History” was smoking something, but it was enjoyable enough. Solid three. Passes the time but you don’t really need it

This book is listed as YA but to me it wasn’t even in that category. Our main character is an adult who reflects back on her youth. It read like a Ruth Ware book to me. The writing was beautiful and the story definitely grasped my attention, but again I wouldn’t categorize this as YA. I think sometimes because there’s a teenager in it people feel the need to have it fall in that category. Other then it being in the wrong book genre, I really enjoyed the story

"Every breath, every moment, possessed with an illusion of glamor, of filthy decadence, purely because it was ours, we two our own radical world, a star collapsing inward and bursting, gorgeous, in the dark."

I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at St. Martin's Press. Trigger warnings: Everything, probably. Death, child death, parent death, car accidents, rape, violence, violence against women, abuse, abusive households, blood, fires, drug/alcohol use, grief, mental illness, depression.

After a tragic car accident claims the lives of her father and little sister, Violet joins Elm Hollow Academy, an all-girls private school most notable for being the site of witch trials and burnings a few centuries ago. Almost immediately, she finds herself drawn to a group of three girls--Robin, Alex, and Grace--who are part of an advanced, secret study group with their favorite teacher, Annabel. Though Annabel insists that witchcraft is little more than mythology, the girls decide to dabble, focusing their revenge on the men in their lives who have wronged them.

The Furies fills a desperate need in the dark academia genre for female main characters, and it has almost nothing but powerful, complex women in it, along with a side wlw relationship. I love novels about toxic girl friendships, and Violet and Robin's has all the hallmarks of love, infatuation, violence, and codependency. While much of the novel is about revenge against men (some in particular, but also as a whole), it's at least as much about how girls relate to one another, especially at that age, and how nobody can mess you up better than your best friend. I don't necessarily like Robin (or Violet), but I can see why they're drawn to each other. It's Whores on the Hill with witchcraft (only not as good).

However, the book isn't as strong in other areas. The writing is distractingly pretentious, with adult Violet pointlessly reflecting on past events. This is par for the course in dark academia, but when I'm reading The Secret History or If We Were Villains, I know in my head that it's pretentious, but I don't feel like it is while I’m reading because it’s just that good; it isn't taking my attention off the story. The writing in The Furies isn't quite good enough to pull that off, and it just comes off as overly wordy and shallowly philosophical. It also circles back too many times to Annabel's lectures, which are repetitive and not terribly enlightening. I may have enjoyed it more as a teenager, but as an adult, I've heard smarter people talk about more interesting things.

The plot is a little shaky as well. The novel starts with the startling tableau of a dead girl posed on a swing, and it's an image that haunts the entire novel and will probably survive long after I've forgotten the rest of the plot (along with the image of a bleeding wych elm--awesome). I was still with Lowe when the girls invoked the Furies to take revenge on Violet's rapist, with interesting consequences. (Is it magic? Is it coincidence? I like that the book never settles firmly on either side.) But from there, it gets a bit silly. The bodies pile up as the girls grow more confident in their murders (because it's a gateway thing, apparently), and it's less believable with each new body. For all the time we spend sloshing around in Violet's head, there isn't enough motivation for all the deaths.

My sense at the beginning of the novel, when Violet utterly failed to react to the deaths of her family members, was that the novel was trying too hard to be edgy, and it's my sense at the end as well. Every character is high on at least two substances all the time, everything reeks of rot (what kind of place is this?), and most of the mysteries surrounding the murders are left as just that. It's a solid premise that doesn't live up to its potential, but it's a first novel. I wouldn't be opposed to seeing how Lowe's talent develops in future books.

I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to review this book!

I loved the synopsis of the book, but I didn't feel that the novel lived up to that hype. The first chapter was great, luring the reader in with the description of a dead girl on a swing. It was so visual and descriptive. However, from there, things just got muddy and complicated.

The book is told from Violet's point of view, but even from the beginning, it's clear to see that she has emotional problems. The only survivor in a crash that killed her sister and father, she is oddly detached from the accident and their memory. She is also not attached to her mother. In fact, she's almost sociopathic in the way she sees life. When she gets into the new school, she immediately teams up with Robin, Alex and Grace, the beautiful outsiders.

What happens next is a wild descent into the occult, but that seems like just an excuse for these teenage girls to exact their revenge on those that wrong them. All four girls are emotionless, except for Robin, who is nearly manic in her reactions to life around her. The novel dissolves into a state of booze and drugs, with witchcraft casually thrown in as a hook to keep the reader involved.

All in all, I honestly just felt that this was the story of four sociopaths that go on a spree to hurt those that slight them.

I so wanted this story to be similar to the movie, The Craft. If only it were. Oh well. I found parts of the story engaging, while the other bits were not interesting at all. I would have to say this is a mixed bag. The idea of the schools' history and the group's interest in witchcraft is fascinating, but aside from that their story itself was filled with too many predictable events and cliches.

Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle ARC of The Furies.

First, I love the cover and I was seduced by the blurb and cover art which was the primary reason for my request.

After the tragic death of her father and little sister, Violet is set to an elite boarding school in an English coastal town. She is lonely, isolated and depressed.

Naturally, she is selected by Robin, one of a trio of girls the student body whisper about (like in the Craft).

What follows is magic, mayhem, revenge and death. Lots of death.

Yet, something was lacking.

First, there's no sense of place. I didn't realize the setting was in the UK until Robin said, "Fancy a smoke?"

Violet calls her mother 'mother' or 'mum' and this usage is inconsistently applied throughout the novel.

Where exactly is this school?

Violet doesn't board at school but returns home every night. Okay.

Second, Violet is a strange character. There's something flat about her affect. I understand she's depressed and lonely but she speaks in an almost formal, adult-ish way. It was hard to believe she was just 16.

The writing was good but not believable for a bunch of angst-ridden teenage girls.

Third, there are many triggers here including sexual violence, rape, and domestic abuse, but these themes were used to move the plot forward, not to make a point or use as a platform to empower the main characters.

Fourth, numerous scenes that featured the teachers giving their lessons were otherworldly boring.

I understand these digressions related to the myth of the Furies and the legend behind the school's legacy and what the girls' were planning but I don't read so I can feel like I'm in a classroom. I finished school and I don't want to go back. Unless it's for fun. Reading about learning is not fun.

Fifth, there was a lack of urgency. There was plenty of exposition and explaining and the girls hanging out but a serious dearth of tension.

When bad things happened, they occurred off screen, so the readers don't experience it first hand, only through the girls.

I loved the story of The Furies and the legend behind the school but I wanted more "The Craft," mayhem, darkness, conflict between the girls and their actions.

It was disappointing that the girls never understood the consequences of their actions, and I understand when you're young, you feel invincible. That nothing can touch you. That nothing can harm you.

In the end, it felt like Violet had never evolved. She hadn't matured or learned from her mistakes.

In a way, I felt Violet was more dangerous than Robin, and it would have been interesting to see this possibility more fleshed out.

This wasn't for me but others might like it.

(Mean Girls + The Craft) x Murder = The Furies
A YA page turner that readers will keep contemplating long after the last page. Perfect for fans of Ruth Ware.

On paper I should have absolutely loved this book, but something about it just left me feeling disconnected from the story. It follows Violet as she recovers from the tragic death of her father and younger sister in a car accident while also becoming the new girl at a prestigious private school. Once there, she finds herself embroiled in a group of girls and what follows is an exploration of the ways in which girls can impact upon one another at an impressionable age. Also, throw in a late nineties setting and a little bit of witchcraft and it should be a recipe for perfection, but it just didn't quite work for me. I really liked the writing, which was much more lyrical than I expected, but I think my issues were with the plotting, which seemed a little disjointed and haphazard at times. I also felt that some elements stretched the suspension of disbelief too far to be credible, which threw me out of the story. What I would say is that there is a real authenticity to the relationships between the girls at the core of the novel - so much so, that it made me genuinely uncomfortable at times how easily influenced they were by each other. I also thought that the author tackled some difficult topics with grace and compassion, but overall, I was unfortunately left feeling a little disappointed.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The new girl Violet is a scholarship student at her new school and she feels very much alone. She is accepted by a group of three girls and can't believe her good fortune to have friends. There are hints about the girl she replaced but the only information Violet learns is the girl disappeared. What follows is a disturbing story about how easy it is to influence an unhappy girl into a life of drugs, drinking and calling upon the ancient furies to help them exact revenge.

The book is well written and the characters are skillfully crafted. I didn't care for total lack of morals most of the characters demonstrated.

I received an Advanced Readers Copy from St Martin's Press through NetGalley. The opinions expressed are entirely my own.
#Furies #NetGalley

A mad bad teen angst book with severe consequences for the hormonal girls who partake in a ghoulish cult.
Is it paranormal? Is it really the manifestation of the Greek furies enacting vengeance? Or is it the feverish violence of homicidal teenagers whipping themselves into a frenzy? That's for you to find out!
This is an excellent novel that I finished in one sitting, and I highly recommend for the YA readers who like it a little darker!

The Furies is a wonderful, dark and incredibly rich thriller/supernatural novel. The book is so well built and fast paced that I wasn't able to put it down till I reached the end. I was absolutely captivated by the atmosphere and characters.

Overall tells an interesting narrative with a complex main character and interesting surrounding characters. Most of the characters featured in the narrative are well fleshed out and have their own personality. Thoroughly enjoyed this one.

The blurb for this sounded great and I heard some good things from other readers, so I must admit I was a little disappointed.
Violet is 16, and after the death of her father and sister in a car accident and being home-schooled for year 11, her mother uses the insurance money to send her to a fancy girls' school with a reputation for excellence.
Violet is drawn to Robin and her friends and before long is part of their group of students receiving extra lessons from enigmatic teacher Annabel.
A lot happens in this book - witchcraft, murder, abuse, drugs and more but some how it didn't work for me.
The main characters (including the teachers and parents) are all quite unlikable. Despite being victims themselves, Violet and her friends don't elicit much sympathy.
There was something that felt a little too American for me to believe this was set in an English coastal town.
Some of the art and literature discussed was interesting and the premise is appealing but unfortunately this just wasn't for me.
Thank you to Netgalley for the advanced copy in return for an honest review.