Unfortunately I just don't think this one was for me.

I found this to be confusing yet cliche at the same time and I had trouble connecting with the characters. I also noticed a bunch of times I had to go back and try to figure out if I had missed something or if the writing was really that disjointed. Some of the scenes changed so quickly that it was confusing and made me feel as though I was overlooking something important that would happen.

The premise of this sounded really cool and intriguing but unfortunately it just didn't follow through.

This novel is equal parts disturbing and wickedly entertaining. The novel follows Violet, a 16 year old girl, who suffers a lot more loss early in life than is typical after a truck runs over the vehicle her, her dad and her little sister are riding in, and kills her dad and sister, leaving her as the only survivor. Her mom is her only living relative and she retreats into a gloomy cloud of grief, leaving Violet to grow up on her own. With the settlement from the accident, Violet is enrolled in the prestigious all girls academy of Elm’s Hollow. She becomes closely involved with a trio of girls led by the fierce and manipulative Robin.
Under the tutelage of mysterious professor Annabelle, who weaves obscure tales of women and witchcraft, the girls allow themselves to be consumed by the stories of these dark rituals. In particular, the tale of the Furies, demonic entities that posses a body and execute various forms of revenge, only able to leave our world when they have completed their tasks. Each girl struggles with their own personal life issues that makes them more vulnerable perhaps to the pressures of being a teen. Innocents beware the Furies have come to Elm’s Hollow! This is a dark story in a way with echoes in the real world in cases like the Slender man assault. We can take a sigh of relief that this is fiction. A genuinely good time.

I was so excited to receive a review copy of The Furies because it sounded like a fun premise, and spooky just in time for October! However, I only made it about 30% in before moving on. It could have been my mood or mindset, but just had a hard time connecting with it and getting into it.
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When a 16 year old girl is found dead at her boarding school with no known cause of death, only a select few know what happened.
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A year before, Violet - a new student on the campus of an all-girls boarding school - quickly finds herself making new friends with a group of girls who have been studying the school’s dark history surrounding Greek and Celtic legends; the school founder’s “academic” interest in the occult; and the 17th century witch trials.
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Despite their teacher’s insistence that these are all just legends and urban myths, the girls become more and more drawn to it until Violet begins to question who she can trust.
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Big thanks to @stmartinspress and @netgalley for the free review copy!

The Furies was an interesting novel with a dark theme. The main character,Violet, is desperately trying to fit in a new all-girls school. She falls in with a clique of girls - Robin, Alex and Grace who make up a small private club, with their teacher Annabel. The school has a dark history with several student deaths. The girls begin to dabble in the occult with violent results. Whether actual magic took place is up for interpretation.

This is a Young Adult novel which I did not realize when I started reading it but it did hold my interest. None of the girls are very sympathetic so that is always a struggle when reading a book like there. I do recommend it for anyone who enjoys YA books.

I had high hopes for The Furies because I love The Craft and dark stories of the dangers that lurk in female friendships, but unfortunately, the Furies didn't satisfy me.
I made it 30% of the way through before I gave up on this book. I was so bored.
Cliche on cliche kept happening; the main protagonist is "entirely average" and then gets in with some cooler girls and they are kinda mean, but Violet is desperate for friends and so she will do anything.

Violet was so dumb in everything she did and she spends the vast majority of the beginning just whining and full of teenage angst. Everything is described about a thousand different times in a way where I think the author wanted to make this The Secret History, but it didn't work.

This review is going to focus on The Furies, written by Katie Lowe. I received an ARC through NetGalley. This book was released on October 8th and is a great option for a Halloween read–so check out your local library or bookstore of choice and grab a copy.

The story of the Furies is set in 1997-1998 at Elm Hollow Academy, an all-girl’s boarding school. We follow Violet, the main character, on her journey through what is meant to be a fresh start after the abrupt passing of both her father and younger sister in a car crash that she survived.

Violet finds herself drawn to one girl at the school, Robin, who allows Violet to join her group of friends, consisting of Alex, and Grace. Elm Hollow Academy has a history with the witch hunt in the UK, with the founding headmistress being accused of witchcraft and executed on campus.

But, before she died, Ms. Boucher, had created an advanced studies class, which is now taught by Annabel. There are only four students, Robin, Alex, Grace, and now Violet. The classes focus on mythology and the occult, and the girls quickly start believing that the spells and rituals will work to their whims. And once they cast a spell, and their desire comes true, the group really begins to believe in the Furies.

Drugs, sex, and alcohol all take part in the chaos that ensues. Especially once the second girl in two years is found dead, sitting on a swing.

Katie Lowe did an good job of setting up the characters in this story. The group dynamics were quite interesting to follow, and there was plenty of mystery to solve. In a school filled with 16 and 17-year-old girls the resulting drama and pettiness comes through well. It was an interesting read, and a decent read for Halloween when the reader may want something dark, but not especially frightening.

Happy reading 🙂

Large segments of this book reminded me of an old favourite, The Secret History by Donna Tartt which deals with similar themes especially when the four girls are invited to join a special class which discusses the origins of the school. Violet is my favourite character, I felt such sympathy for her, lost in the world after the death of her father and young sister, desperate to belong, lured by an offer of friendship from the popular clique. Of course, things start to take a dark and sinister turn when the girls take their special class lectures on Witchcraft and myth a little too literal when they find an old spell book and decide to dabble. Dabbling in magic never ends well. I loved the fact Violet as an adult is the first person narrator. I love first person narrator’s when they work well, creating an intimacy that takes you right into the heart of events. I found this quite uncomfortable to read at times as events spiral further and further out of control. This book is about damaged people and is very dark at times. There are also echoes of one of my favourite teenage movies here, The Craft. The Furies is a mash of interesting things and not everything is spelled out. I got on board with this one.

Okay this book is all your classics horror and teen films in one! Think Sabrina the Teenage Witch meets Carrie! These girls are awesome! I love the all girls school vibes, perfect for October!

I was provided an advanced copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is out now so hopefully some of my issues with this book may be related to the fact that it was an ARC and hopefully were corrected with editing. I didn't love the writing style of this. It felt choppy and disjointed. For example, the two main characters would be talking about looking at something while standing then in the next sentence they would be sitting on a bed in another room. There would be no mention of them moving or sitting down. Another example, two characters would be walking up the street, one was wandering aimlessly and the other was going to her boyfriends, they begin talking there is no mention of a party in their dialogue yet one character asks if the other is going to said party. I had to reread passages to see if I missed something. This really threw the pacing off for me because you had to infer a lot of information that wasn't on the page. Having read an ARC that is several months out from publication it may be the case that those continuity issues have been corrected in the final publication. It could just be the type of prose this writer uses, which is not my preferred style. So take that with a grain of salt.

I was actually really looking forward to this book. Unfortunately, it just didn’t deliver for me. The description gave me vibes of the movie The Craft (which I love) where four girls somewhat on the outskirts of society form a kind of a feminist coven to seek revenge on those who have wronged them. While that's kind of what happens, this book fell really short for me. There is a lot glorified of drug and alcohol use as an escape for dealing with problems. As a book being marketed to young women, I have a big problem with the amount of drug and alcohol use in this book, emotional and physical abuse, and lack of adult supervision in this book. These girls are left to their own devices to solve some pretty serious issues. Any challenge to their poor decision making amongst their group or from outside is met with “F you” as a response. Their decisions to take matters into their own hands are guided by the occult and mythology of The Furies, which they learn about in their posh, unconventional private school. I wish the mythology and occult had been flushed out a bit more. The magical element was lacking for me; again it was left for the reader to imagine.

I think this was a case of a book that turned out to be not what I was expecting. I wanted more mythology and magic/occult. I wanted the one or all of the girls to learn and grow and be empowered by their difficult situations. While Robin is the dark and troubled ring leader who you expect to stay dark and troubled, I kind of expected Violet to turn out to be the light heroine who comes into her own despite all of the bad things in her life. Instead she is just as unlikeable as Robin, and never develops into an empowered young woman. She is gullible, naïve, and co-dependent. She is so obsessed with being liked by Robin and the group she will do anything Robin says. It just didn’t work for me.

If you like toxic friendships and dark characters arcs, I’d say give this a go. Just beware that there are a lot of potential triggers in this book. The fantastical element in this book didn’t deliver, but the thriller kept me invested enough to finish. You keep reading because you want to know what crazy thing the girls are going to do next. This also starts with a dead girl, and you keep reading to find out what really happened and how it all comes together.

I would like to firstly thank the publishers for providing me with a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My opinions have not been influenced by this in any way.

The Furies by Katie Lowe has all the right elements to make me love it, and that was what I expected would happen. Unfortunately, that was not the case. In fact, I could not even finish reading it. I am writing this review after having given up on reading this book at 67%.

What I Liked:

I loved the setting, this allusive and alluring dark academia in a British coastal city. It worked perfectly to the tone of the story and it made it so much more intriguing and somewhat dreamy in its dark atmosphere.

The mystical and feminist aspects of this book and the way they are interconnected in the story were very well-done and I thought it was a very interesting aspect.

The writing is amazing. It was intensely descriptive, mystical and was just overall perfect for this kind of book.

I can also really appreciate the idea, the whole concept behind this story, characters and “the furies”, but I simply did not enjoy reading.

What I Did Not Like:

The first and foremost thing that really hindered my enjoyment of this story was the characters. Violet, the main character, is a bland, seemingly apathetic girl throughout the first half of the story. She can’t connect or fit in with most of the girls at her school, except Robin and she clings desperately to her and her other friends even as her life gets exponentially darker. Robin was the overly-dramatic, reckless girl prone to excess and bad decisions. Grace was the quiet, somewhat beatified victim and Alex was the rich lesbian girl who loved these two, essentially. These were not particularly interesting characters, and aside from Grace I could not find any justification for their actions – in the part of the book I did read, that is.

Although I did love the writing, I do think it failed in one aspect. There’s little emotion in this first-person perspective novel even as horrible things happen to Violet. I never felt the characters’ emotions, I never even felt remotely moved (though I did feel horrified with what happened with what Tom did).

The prologue was what initially made me incredibly intrigued and even slightly enthralled by this story. However, it also foreshadowed some actions and events that would otherwise be shocking and disturbing. It made all of those things predictable, and consequently duller.

In short, there were some aspects I really loved about this book but I didn’t enjoy reading it at all. I don’t like giving up on books, but I always felt a little forced, and I didn’t want to know the ending, or what would happen to these characters. I simply could not continue with it.

Nevertheless, I still recommend this book. If you think it might be interesting than I fully recommend giving it a go and seeing for yourself.

This book just don't do it for me. It was predictable and was a slow read. The first 1/3 had promise but just fell apart from there.

I love love LOVED The Furies and I hate myself for being so late on this review, lol. I actually grabbed the UK copy since it released in May and then was granted access to this copy. Either way I plan to grab the US copy ASAP to add to my collection.

While I had a bit of difficulty getting into this book, once I got going, it was an enjoyable read. Some of the characters weren’t as likable as others, but every book needs a protagonist.

A story about toxic friendships, girl friend circles, beliefs in mystical powers, growing up and finding balance again: Violet has been through a horrific accident and she is still recovering. She is offered a place at the all-girl's school, Elm Hollow Academy, and thus begins this novel of her finding her clique, the school drama, the magic and the thought-provoking literature the girls need under Annabel and nights loosing oneself.

Before Violet, Robin, Alex and Grace used to have another friend, Emily, who unfortunately went missing couple months back. In her attempt to get to know the girls better, Violet doesn't ask about Emily but knows that she is one of the things that makes her an outsider in this group. In Robin, she finds the thrill of adventure and mischief, a person to worship, passionately love and hate at the same time. The Furies are the ancient goddesses that the girls learn about through Annabel, and the story says true to depict the wrath that is unleashed when injustice happens.

Katie's writing is phenomenal - the research that went into writing this work is presented in an engaging manner. Through the girls' teacher, Annabel, Katies offers interesting perspectives on magic, women's place in society, and much more. The prose is dark, bitter at times, as Violet comes to accept her reality and role in the things that happen. At the same time, since she is narrating from the future, she is able to provide some retrospective perspectives to the events as well. The teenage mind's narrative, sprinkled with the wise older woman's experiences.

I truly enjoyed this novel. With an underlying murder mystery, this was a perfect October spooky read, with a splash of girl-problems. I am thankful to the publisher and author for making the book available to me on NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

This is the best debut novel that I have read in a long time, I'll be thinking about this novel for a very long time. From the first page I was gripped by Lowe's storytelling, her ability to draw the reader into the story until every scene felt like a profoundly personal experience. Reading this felt like I was a part of a sinister secret. I felt the crisp chill in the air and walked amidst the whispers in the halls of Elm Hollow Academy. Lowe's eloquence and raw emotions struck me in a way I hadn't realized that I have been missing and I can't recommend this novel enough for this introspective autumn season.

The Furies by Katie Lowe is a YA novel and is a telling story of teen angst, friendship, and manipulation. Reading it as an adult with teenage children really made me think back to the peer pressure of high school, the choices that we make, and how each little slide can take you somewhere you may not have been intending to go.

The Furies tells of Violet, whose life fell apart when her dad and sister died. Her mother is too overwhelmed to pay attention, and Violet goes to the private Elm Hollow Academy, an all-girls school. The school has a grim history with stories told of the school's founders being into the occult, stories of witch trials, and mythology. As an outsider, Violet is willing to change to fit into a group, and becomes friends with 3 girls with little supervision. Drinking, drugs, rebelling... Violet goes along with it to escape her life and belong. For those of us who have been through high school, there may be flashbacks to those types of girls and that longing to belong. Adding to the allure is Annabel, an art teacher who teaches a secret class for specially selected students. The classes focus on the mythology and stories of the power of women, how those betrayed or treated poorly can seek revenge. In the hands and minds of the 4 girls, this takes a sinister turn and I have to admit that I did not see the ending coming. Truth be told, the middle went further than I thought it would resulting in a dark and gothic read that combines teen angst, manipulation, grief, and mystery into a tightly wrapped package.

My Highly Caffeinated Thought: A dark and twisty read with witchcraft, murders, supernatural lore, and teenage angst.

THE FURIES is one of those books that you don’t know if you are going to like, but then all of a sudden you are three-quarts of the way through the book and cannot wait to see what happens next. I became addicted to finding out how everything was going to end.

What makes this story bingable is a combination of the writing, the evolution of these teenage girls throughout the book, and supernatural elements. Lowe constructed a tale that plays with the heightened emotions of these teen girls. As the reader delves further into the world Violet has been thrust into, you will see how the girls process their grief and pain from all they encounter. Revenge will lead to murder, and the darkness they tap into will lead to the bond of these four being tested to the fullest.

If you liked THE CRAFT as I did, this book is definitely reminiscent of that. It is dark, quick-moving, and casts a spell on its readers.

The Furies by Katie Lowe
Book Review by Dawn Thomas

357 Pages
Publisher St Martin’s Press
Release Date: October 8, 2019

Fiction, Thriller, Coming of Age, Witchcraft, Magic

Violet is a survivor of a fatal car crash. Her father and younger sister died in the accident. She and her mother are not coping well as they try to move on with their lives. Violet receives a scholarship to an exclusive all-girls school. After finishing the school year being home schooled, Violet begins at Elm Hollow. She meets Robin and a close friendship begins.

Violet is invited to participate in a special class with Robin, Alex and Grace. They learn about the history of the school and the original head mistress that was burned as a Witch. Because she longs to belong, Violet follows their lead. This may not be in her best interest though. She begins drinking, smoking and doing drugs. In the book there are scense of rape, sexual assault, child abuse and violet deaths. This is a very dark story that I found gripping and disturbing at the same time.

What a great premise, but the follow through fell flat. I wanted to enjoy this witchy all girls private school tale, but I found it confusing and disjointed. Many times I felt like I needed to go back and read sections again because a scene changed without any indication and I felt like I was missing important information.

At Elm Hollow Academy, an all girl's boarding school, there is more than just academics going on as Violet, who lost her father and sister in an auto accident and whose mother has become clinically depressed since will soon find out. Violet is given the opportunity to attend the school because of her grades and her situation.

Feeling out of place and awkward she befriends a group of girls, Robin, who seems to be the leader, Grace and Alex. She falls headfirst into their drinking and drugs lifestyle. When she is told her talent in art makes her eligible for an advanced art class which also includes her friends, she jumps at the chance. But what she finds is that their art teacher, Annabel, is not only teaching art but other mystical and occult themes which have been taught to special girls at the school throughout the years.

Violet begins to become obsessed with the girls (known as The Furies), especially with Robin. She starts to question situations and finds her life spiraling out of control. She finds out that the year before one the group's friends disappeared and was never seen again. Someone she is told looks similar to her.

Violet begins to put two and two together and realizes the occult themes may in actuality be reality. She becomes entangled with her friend's secrets and secret powers and she is frightened, yet she cannot break the spell the group seems to have on her. She feels she is lost and is nothing without them. And when the group implodes on itself she feels the brunt of the guilt. Knowing she can only trust herself she must make some difficult choices.

This book has been compared to Donna Tartt's The Secret History one of my all time favorite books and I totally agree!

The Furies is filled with history, occult, murder, hate, greed, abuse and envy. A very dark yet delicious read!

Thank you #NetGalley #St.Martin'sPress # TheFuries #KatieLowe for the advanced copy. The Furies is available now.