The Furies was a did not finish for me. The story was too dark and depressing! Thank you for the opportunity.

This was such a unique read and it was clever and edgy. The Furies is a well-written engaging story about toxic friends with a dark backdrop of witches, spells, murder, and magic. The suspense mounts incrementally and ensures the reader is hooked to every word, as myth and history begin to collide with reality. Nothing can be trusted. All will be revealed.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review,

I was really looking forward to reading The Furies. From the synopsis, I was getting a "The Craft" movie vibe. That movie is a favorite of mine. I wish I could say that I loved this book. However, it didn't live up to my expectations. The story revolves around Violet who is the new girl at a private school. She has a lonely home life because her mother has checked out due to the loss of her husband and younger daughter. Violet is looking for a place to fit in.

I found this book kind of boring and long. The pacing was just really slow for me. I also found that the characters were unlikeable and forgettable at the same time. The parts about Greek mythology and The Furies was uninteresting. I wasn't shocked by anything the girls did in this book. They were spoiled brats seemingly brainwashed by one of their teachers. I’m not sure I really understood the teacher’s motivation for pulling the girls into her group. The ending was a surprise, but it wasn't enough to save the story for me.

NetGalley #ARC that reminds me of the 🎬The Craft but deeper & darker. At a girl's prep school in a coastal town, Violet meets 3 schoolmates & joins their special study group with an art teacher who tells them the legend of the school's founder--put to death for witchcraft but not before summoning the Erinyes or Furies of Ancient Greek Myth for revenge. The girls start practicing witchcraft & things spiral out of control. Disjointed but not bad—it kept me turning the pages.

I heard about this book being a murder mystery of a group of girls in a 'witch cult' but the reader is supposed to figure out which one is killed which we know as soon as the book opens.

There are four girls, the narrator, which of course can't be dead since she says so herself, Robin, Alex, and Grace. There is a bond between Alex and Grace and you see it and hear about it throughout the book. Robin is essentially the bad influence in the group who convinces Violet (the narrator) to do things she shouldn't be doing. There is also a girl already missing named Emily Frost who was in the group before Violet even joined the friend group.

Things happen, people die, and we finally find out which girl was killed, which based on the information given kind of gives it away. But the ride between finding out who died is great, the reader is left spinning from all these incriminating events that keep occurring.

I had a hard time getting into the story at the beginning with pacing and at points when Anabel was lecturing the girls, but that was probably all on me. Once things started to pick up and I knew which girl was who based on characteristics given by Robin (I think) it made it easier to stick to the story.

Overall, I enjoyed this novel and would recommend it.

Can witches ever really have true friends? In The Furies by Katie Lowe, Violet learns about betrayal and witchcraft more than she learns about any other school subject.

The setting is Elm Hollow Academy, an all-girls boarding school, near a small town. It’s a boarding school but it doesn’t seem like the students live there. In the beginning, a student has been posed on the swings after her death. The narrator doesn’t tell the reader who the student is until the end.

Violet has lost her father and sister. Her mother is alive but stuck in a cycle of depression. Violet can get away with almost anything because her mother isn’t paying attention. She had been homeschooled for the last year. Violet took on the responsibility of her own education so she decided to attend Elm Hollow Academy.

There has been a student, Emily, that disappeared before Violet arrived on campus. Apparently, Emily and Violet resembled each other. Violet also became friends with Emily’s friends – Robin, Alex and Grace. The art teacher, Annabel, invited Violet to participate in a secret group that learned about the local women accused of witchcraft and Furies, goddesses of vengeance.

Violet and her group of friends go through all of the growing pains of friendship. Can they trust each other with their personal secrets? Are they more like enemies than friends? Maybe frenemies.

If you like “The Craft” or “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” then there is a good chance that you will enjoy “The Furies.”

Witch hunters and Nancy from “The Craft” will probably not be a fan of this book.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own. Obviously.

I had great hopes of The Furies by Katie Lowe as it appeared to have all the ingredients of a page-turner that I have enjoyed before; mystery, murder, magic and so on.
Unfortunately, for myself, the expectations were not realised.
The author actually writes beautifully; her descriptions and choice of words are a joy to read; it was the progression which let it down for me. The story didn't seem to be going anywhere, or have any real momentum, and in the end it just seemed tedious. When I put it down, it could be days before I picked it up again.
I'm sorry, but this book, in the end, just wasn't for me.

While I did enjoy reading about what people called “the secret history via Megan Abbott” and the myths/fantasy/occult elements like “the furies,” these weren’t enough for me to want to keep reading the story.

2.5/5

I wanted to like this book. I thought it was going to remind me of The Craft meets Mean Girls. It's tone was more reminiscent of The Secret History and I found it hard to really engage with any of the characters.

Thank you so much to St. Martins Press for the complimentary copy of this book for my honest review.

I was instantly intrigued by this book as it was compared to the movie The Craft and I have a guilty pleasure for witchy reads. Add in the boarding school setting and I was completely sold on this.

But then I started reading it and normally I’m a pretty fast reader but this book was taking me forever, I’m talking weeks forever to get through just a few chapters. It’s not that I wasn’t interested, I was having a hard time with the author’s writing style. It’s definitely lyrical but it’s almost over the top lyrical and way too descriptive. It shouldn’t take so many words to describe someone’s hair or how a character was feeling.

I was already considering DNFing this book due to the confusing (to me at least) way of writing and lack of liking the characters when the animal sacrifice and abuse came in. I understand this is just fiction and it’s not real but I’m the girl that can’t watch sad animal movies and reading Old Yeller made me cry for a week. That is one topic in books that I will never stand for, like I said, even if it’s fiction, so I DNFed. Call me PETA or whatever you want, I just can’t read these types of books.

DNF @22%
2019; St. Martin's Press

"In 1998, a sixteen-year-old girl is found dead.

She’s posed on a swing on her boarding school’s property, dressed all in white, with no known cause of death. Whispers and rumors swirl, with no answers. But there are a few who know what happened; there is one girl who will never forget."

I will admit when I read this first bit of the synopsis, I was sold and could not wait to read this one. Even when the novel started to drag, I wanted to keep trying as I wanted to see when the mystery would come up. I will also admit as I listened to this audiobook, my mind started wandering as the story just wasn't keeping my attention. Usually I like the young adult storyline, but this Mean Girls meet The Craft plot just fell a bit flat for me. I felt like there wasn't enough happening to move the story along. I decided to DNF at 22% because at this point I could not remember which name belonged to which girl, and couldn't even explain what was happening.

***I received a complimentary copy of this ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss/NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.***

This book was similar to author's other book. Not a witchcraft fan. It was an ok read. There were things I liked and things I did not. About 50% enjoyed it.

Disclaimer: I received this book from Netgally for review purposes.

WARNING: THIS BOOK CONTAINS ANIMAL ABUSE

First book of the new year!!! How exciting. I wasn't really sure what I was getting into with this one but it wasn't the worst way to bring in a new year of books.

Basically combine The Craft with Lost Boys and maybe Heather's and you've got The Furies. It started with a beautiful bang (possible murder?!) which drew me in from the get go. At first I couldn't tell if our main character was male or female but she's a gal named Violet. She's pretty flat overall and her only charactistic trait is kind of obsessive lovesick infatuated puppy dog for our other main character, Robin. She seems to love her as much as she idolizes her which I also didn't fully understand because Robin was also a little bland for me 🤷

Theres two other girls in their girl group but I honestly can't remember their names because I felt like they weren't relevant and barely there.

I had a hard time just kind of grasping the whole concept. The thought that teenage girls would so willingly do this weird dumb shit made me scratch my head a little. Playing around with witchcraft is believable sure but ritual sacrifices where you kill a cat? Really?

It wasn't a terrible book and it held my attention but overall I guess I was yearning for a little more. I don't think I'd recommend this one, I'd probably say pass on it.

Going to keep this fairly short and synopsis free since this is a hard book to describe.

I didn’t care for the writing style, there were too many separate clauses within each sentence and it lacked flow and left it feeling stilted. It reminded me of a mix of Dead Girls Club and Foul is Fair in a way except devoid of the over the top quirk that accompanied the darkness in those two books... it just wasn’t unusual enough.

Violet felt too old and at the same time devoid of a personality or agency. I wanted more of the magic and for it to not just be an afterthought used as a plot device.

It got a bit more interesting in the second half but it never really conveyed the weight or impact of what was happening. It was missing an emotional component and seemingly expected the reader to fuel and supply that on their own.

It had some potential but never drove it all the way home.

2.5 stars.

Yikes. I really struggled with this one. For more reasons than one.

1. The characters were not likable or believable. I can get on board with characters that aren't likable, but I have to be able to believe their actions. I had a really hard time wrapping my brain around the situational reactions and motivations of the four primary girls in the story as well as their teacher, Annabel. I felt like their reactions in several parts of the story were completely bizarre and defied logic. I could not relate to any of them.

2. There were many pieces of the story that I felt were completely irrelevant and could have been cut out of the novel completely for the sake of brevity. I did not care for the monologue-heavy teachings of Annabel and couldn't relate the reading of her dark and twisty academic passages to the story. A few times I felt like we were in one scene and then we quickly transitioned to another scene without much closure; the transitions were oftentimes rough.

3. I truly didn't understand the relationship between the Occult and demonic practices of the girls and their actions. While I don't personally care for that type of content, if you're going to go there with creepy, Satanic talk then go there. But I felt like the author had one foot in and one foot out, which left me confused.

4. The ending was completely unbelievable. In a world with modern forensics, I have a hard time believing that multiple people can just walk away from various horrific crimes without any consequences (won't give away the who or the what here, but suffice it to say, I find it hard to believe the police are that dumb).

Overall, I just felt like this one missed the mark and didn't tell a cohesive or believable story. The first 50% was utterly boring, waiting for the plot to get somewhere and then the last 50% didn't make much sense.

-I received an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Katie Lowe, and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to review.-

As a thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced reader copy I shall give an honest review of “ The Furies” by Katie Lowe. With throwback feels to Gossip Girl and The Craft this debut novel tells the story of a young girl named Violet who enters Elm Hollow Academy an all girl’s boarding school In this school does Violet learn of its eerie history and finds herself taking interest in Greek and Celtic legends that the schools founder centered its curriculum around. By chance, Violet is chosen for her excellent academic efforts and is placed in a classroom that the student body is unaware of and is taught the importance of myth and legends ex. Greek and Celtic. In this classroom does she explore the role women have had in mythology and address its key figures namely The Furies of Greek myth. I found this to be a great tool to explain the inner emotions of teenage girls that cannot be explained. By attending this class does Violet meets three ( Alex, Grace, and Robin) other girls who she becomes attracted to not only for their social status but larger than life personas. As the novel continues the girls experience the trials and tribulations of teenage women including loss, heartache, and revenge. The role of the furies becomes front and center and their concept of judgment apparent. The novel held my interest in its ability to touch on figures of mythology typically not utilized and added to the tone of the novel. I lost interest in the novel outside its fantastical elements and found it hard to stay invested in it. In its last 30% did my interest peak and was able to complete the novel. Overall I give this novel three out of five stars on Goodreads.

With enough twists and turns to tie yourself into a knot, The Furies follows Violet, Alex, Grace, and Robin as they fall under the spell of a mysterious art teacher. Events quickly run out of control until it ultimately culminates in a murder. With suspenseful storytelling and enigmatic characters, this novel is definitely a slow burn. But if you don't mind putting the time into the slow fleshing out of the story, then I would highly recommend you give this book a try!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Furies by Katie Lowe is perfect for fans of the old 80s classic cult movie Heathers. They have a similar storyline about mean girls and exclusive clubs. However, The Furies throws in a little magic to stir up the plot. Private school, new girl, and a history of possible witchcraft on school property all make for quite the book. Read and enjoy!

Violet is the new girl in school, starting over after losing her father and young sister in a car accident and dealing with a drunken mother who is hardly much of a parent. She meets Robin, Alex and Grace and they become inseparable. Violet is invited to join their special class with teacher, Annabel, learning the history of the school. Robin had a best friend, Emily, who went missing the year before, so when her body is found, Violet is suddenly wondering about her new friends and their teacher.

This book sounded like it had so much potential when I started reading it, but it fell short in my opinion. It went off in quite a few different directions and would have been better had it continued with a single storyline. In fact, I never really felt that it tied up the story in the end and left the reading with too many questions.

Trigger warnings - rape, murder, drug use, toxic friendship.

If you enjoy reading about mythology without it being overwhelming, there are many references throughout this book. There also was a lot of discussion about folk law and Celtic legends, these are not topics I know a lot about so I can't attest to their accuracy, however, if these are topics you enjoy, this is the book for you.

The tougher scenes that relate to the trigger warnings elicited emotion for me. They felt realistic and raw. I would have like to know more about the mother-daughter relationship, it felt underdeveloped to me, but what I knew intrigued me.

The pacing towards the very end of the book was not for me, it felt slightly rushed and then did not explain enough for my liking. I also didn't love the writing style, it was just that little bit too flowery for my tastes.

Overall, I think this was for a specific type of reader and I was not that reader, unfortunately.