thank you to @celadonbooks for the gifted arc of @alex.michaelides’s latest!

lana farrar needs a vacation. desperately. enter her best friends, elliot & kate, ready at stage left to join her & her family on their island in the aegean. all’s well… until someone dies.

as most thrillers do, this story starts with death. where it diverges is the way that it all unravels. told from elliot’s perspective, the story is told quickly but it’s contextualized slowly & steadily. told in layers, this story leaves the readers constantly questioning who did it & why. the twists have twists & i was left wondering almost until the very end. i enjoyed the unique narration style & appreciated the callbacks to michaelides’s previous work. if you’re on the fence, i recommend giving it a shot!

and if this review left you wondering what the vibes are/if it’s worth the read, here are some photos from my trip to mykonos in 2017. greece remains one of my favorite places i’ve ever traveled to 🥰

the fury is out now!!

**4.5-stars**

The Fury, the latest from Alex Michaelides, is a unique and unsettling Tragedy from which I couldn't look away. This kept my head spinning all the way through. We love that!

I've thoroughly enjoyed this author's previous novels, so had been highly anticipating this. I started to see some early reviews though that made question if I would like it. Luckily, I found this to be engaging and intriguing from the very start. Our narrator, Elliot, addresses the fact that he is our narrator. It's like we are sitting with him, having some drinks, and he is telling us a story from his life.

I absolutely adore that kind of narrative. It always makes me feel like I am actually a part of the action, or more fittingly in this case, of the friend group.

Elliott relates to us the details of an ill-fated trip he took with his best friend, Lana, a retired movie star, her husband, Jason, their mutual friend, Kate, also an actress, Lana's son Leo, an aspiring actor, and Lana's assistant, to a remote Greek island for a weekend getaway.

We know what starts out as a beautiful holiday, ends up to be anything but. The group gets trapped on the island due to high winds. Emotions and tensions are running high. The claustrophobic nature of their excursion becomes palpable. This strain could be blamed for the violence and death that ultimately occurs, couldn't it? Or is something much deeper lurking under the surface that leads to the bloody and chaotic conclusion?

Y'all, I was absolutely swept up into this story. I know that some Reviewers have mentioned that it was slow for them, but I didn't have the same experience with it. I had the audiobook and listened to the first 70% just while adulting, doing my cleaning and other errands, one Saturday.

I was obsessed with learning all I could about the characters and couldn't help but continuing on. The narrative structure is out of the ordinary, but I loved how it was done. Michaelides kept me guessing. It also should be noted that I am a huge fan of unreliable narrators and Elliott fits that moniker to a tee.

I wouldn't say this is a simple story to read, and I can see how it wouldn't be for everyone. I can also see how some may find it slow. There is quite a bit of develop in the beginning, building out our group and their relationships.However, for those who enjoy some mental gymnastics, mixed with great character work, an unreliable narrator and tension so thick you could cut it with a knife, this is sure to be a success.

If any of these descriptors are buzzwords for you, give it a go. You may like it, you may not, but either way, it's sure to be a memorable experience.

A few other aspects of this book that worked for my tastes were the remote location, particularly the fact that it is set on an island, I live on an island, so tend to love to see that, the cast of unlikable characters and the teeny bit of character crossover from The Maidens and The Silent Patient. No, you don't need to read either of those novels prior to reading this, but for those who have, those little name drops can be a lot of fun.

While this doesn't have the same level of mystery as The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, it did sort of remind me of that in some ways. I think the vibe of mild confusion mixed with enjoyment is quite similar. If you enjoyed that one, you may enjoy this as well. Overall, I think this is just so fun. It's clever and engaging and yes, also a tad confusing at times. I'd definitely read it again, maybe try and pick up some subtleties I might have missed this time around.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Macmillan Audio and Celadon Books, for providing me with a copy to read and review. This was a great reading experience for me and I'm happy to have a copy on my shelves.
I can't wait to see what Michaelides comes up with next!!

Alex Michaelides does it again. A remarkable mystery of human relationships and tragedy. Rightfully one of the most anticipated books of the year, Michaelides does not disappoint.

An unreliable narrator sidles up to you at a bar and wants to tell you a story. He conveys his character's shortcomings throughout that story, which has movie stars, a beautiful Greek island, lots of drugs and booze, jealousy, and *murder*. Oh yeah and it's by Alex Michaelides, the wizard behind The Silent Patient. Yes please and thank you.

The story zigs and zags, loops forward and back and forward again. It's dishy, it's salacious, it's gossipy. Elliot (our narrator) is debauched. He's a playwright, and it's unclear how successful or well known he is. He does get himself invited to the island getaway. The island setting is over the top - isolated, luxurious, well-appointed, desolate. It was fun to be on the island with Elliot and the rest of the cast: Lana the movie star siren, her husband, her son, Kate her frenemy the stage actress, and Agathi and Nikos, the locals who become part of the small circle.

The Fury kept me guessing, and delivered. I like being in this eerie and strange universe that Michaelides has created.

My thanks to NetGalley and Celadon Books for the ARC. The Fury is available now!

The Fury, written by Alex Michaelides, is a theatrical mystery about a group of friends (ish) who go off to a Greek island one weekend to get some sun…or so we think. It is told from the point-of-view of Elliot Chase who is a playwright, meaning we get a lot of description of characters and events and also dramatics. It is definitely not your typical mystery or thriller, but there are twists and turns throughout that I often didn’t see coming. I would recommend this is you like a lighter mystery with a good storyline!

(Received an Advanced Reader Copy through Net Galley)

I wasn’t a huge fan of this particular style of narration, and I found the characters a bit obnoxious! The story was slow and then when it picked up it was just a bit too overdone with the twists.
Not a horrible book but not one of my faves

This is the third book that this author has written. My favorite was the Silent Patient and my least favorite is the Maidens. This was solidly in the middle. It was missing that extra something that made the Silent Patient so good but not as dull as The Maidens. I did like the setting and think the author does a good job setting the scene. I wasn’t expecting how the ending ruined a major plot from his other book.

The Fury is NOT the psychological mind(expletive) that The Silent Patient was. It’s a cozy mystery with an unreliable narrator that remains utterly entertaining from start to finish. A Greek Tragedy that’s fun and comical. Whydunit might be my new favorite genre. I loved it! Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for providing an Advanced Readers Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley, Celadon Books, MacMillan Audio and Alex Michaelides for both digital and audio galleys of The Fury in exchange for an honest review.

I think everyone was beyond excited when we learned that Alex was releasing a new books & I was right there with them!

The title, the cover, the synopsis - just the fact that it is Alex Michaelides - made this a MUST READ book for me.

This story was full of twists and turns with Elliott Chase as our narrator. The media would lead us to believe that one of Lana Farrar's Easter weekend getaways on her private Greek Island resulted in a tragic death that still gets talked about to this day. Elliott is here to set the record straight and tell us what REALLY happened that weekend on the island.

It was a bit slow for a while, during the character introduction and development stage. I would have liked that to go a bit quicker as slow set-ups usually turn me off quick. But, I refused to give up on Michaelides.

Once the story finally got going, I was fully gripped. I enjoyed the Glass Onion type concept of having a scenario presented, but then going back and presenting the same scenario from a different perspective. Showing us that "what you see is what you get" is not necessarily accurate.

All of the characters were absolutely horrid, as they were intended to be. They were written to perfection.

The second half of the book is definitely the best part of it. The twists just kept coming all the way to the very end and the end was a jaw dropping twist that I did NOT see coming!

Silent Patient fans will love the author's subtle nod to it.

The slow first half of the books is really what kept this from being a 4.5 or 5 Star book for. With that said, if had been any one other than Alex Michaelides, I probably would have DNF'd it well before the halfway mark due to the slow pacing.

Overall, I rate this 4-Stars and will happily recommend this title.

This book was great! Huge fan of the author and his previous books. I was thrilled to get this as an arc. I definitely want to go back and read parts of the book to make sure I understand everything. I love the twists in his books and how they all are interconnected. We have to wait a while in between books, but it is work it! Definitely would recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon books for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was not for me, even though my college degree was in Classic Greek literature, something this book uses heavily. I've read two of Michaelides books now and, despite being really intrigued by the original premise, I found the execution of both to be lacking. Speaking of the other Michaelides book I’ve read— there’s fully a spoiler for The Silent Patient at the end of this book. Which means that these take place in the same canon, meaning that there is now an official MCU (Michaelides Cinematic Universe). So that’s fun.

If you don’t know, “The Fury” follows the reclusive, retired movie star, Lana Ferrara, and her group of friends as they take off for Lana’s private Greek island for the Easter weekend. By the end of the weekend, one of them will be dead.

This book touts itself as being “like nothing you’ve ever read before,” which is hilarious because even within the book, the author is comparing it to other books. The entire time I was reading it, I was firmly reminded of Glass Onion. So, the book had lied to me before I had even started it.

I had a lot of problems with this book— the characters were two dimensional; the plot lacked substance; and the twists are entirely too predictable. The narrator is far too pretentious for me to ever enjoy reading, and I love unlikeable characters. Unfortunately, the pretentiousness of the narrator gives away a lot of the book. This is a first-person peripheral narrative, that is also framed as being an omniscient narrator for a lot of the book. Because Elliot is acting like this all knowing narrator, you, as a reader, know almost immediately that he does not actually know what’s going on and everything is filtered from his lens of delusional thought.

As for the other characters, they all fall incredibly flat. Literally 90 per cent of the descriptions of Lana are about how beautiful she is, physically. And that’s it. There’s almost no “here’s what she’s like as a person,” almost everything about her is just how attractive she is. This is why nobody likes to read women who were written by men.

The other characters, even after they know about Elliot’s delusions, still leave him completely alone and unsupervised on an island that has way too many guns, honestly. It is an upsetting amount of guns for one island. But they leave him alone anyway, and you’ll never guess what happens…

I really struggle to describe this plot in anything longer than a sentence, which is fine for a thriller like this— you just want to tell people the initial premise without giving too much away so they don’t guess what’s really going on. The problem is more that if I were to describe the entire plot to you, exactly as it happened, it would still only be a couple of sentences. The majority of the novel is paced way too slow for it to build up any sort of tension and whatever little tension it can drum up at points is quickly deflated by the fact that we know we can’t trust anything this narrator is telling us. This is 300 pages of unreliable narratives, given by a character that I can’t stand, about a murder that will eventually occur.

I didn’t like The Silent Patient, but I was hopeful I would enjoy The Fury. Unfortunately that was not the case. I don’t want to spoil anything, but there are elements of this book that are boringly similar to his last novel. The “twist” is confusing and I don’t feel like I ever understood the main character’s true personality. Mostly I was just bored by this book. The time jumps and slowly revealed information were a little bit interesting, but the payoff wasn’t worth it. The relationships between the characters were confusing and changed really rapidly. There are violent descriptions of bullying, and there is never emotional relief from those descriptions. There’s a lot of talk about dealing with and coming to terms with our inner children, but it didn’t resonate with me. I didn’t particularly like any of the characters, and I didn’t care when any of them were hurt. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be reading any more of his books in the future.

Did not finish. I could not get into the story line and the narrator. I really enjoyed his other books but this one missed the mark for me.

When a group of friends convene on a remote Greek island for a vacation, there is more than just relaxation at stake. Perhaps unrequited love will come to a confrontation, or old friends will be accused of betrayal and infidelity, or simply a son will seek connection with his aloof movie star mother. But we soon find that with this crew, nothing is as it seems.

I was excited to receive an ARC of this book—I read The Silent Patient (TSP) last year and while it wasn’t one of the best thrillers I read, the twists and turns were memorable enough that I was interested in reading more from Michaelides. With so much to live up to after TSP effectively dominated BookTok, the author had quite a task ahead of him. Unfortunately, The Fury was highly underwhelming for me and a disappointing follow-up.

Let me start with the things I did enjoy about this book: once again, a very well-written story. The settings were well-developed, character building was incremental and purposeful, and it was a fun take on an age-old tale of friends trapped on a remote island.

Now to what I was not as enthusiastic about: it wasn’t the slow burn that turned me off to this story, or the fact that there were many characters involved right off the bat, or the fact that the story was told non-chronologically. I was mostly disappointed that the narrator repeatedly TOLD the audience that he was unreliable and untrustworthy. This, combined with literary quotes to open each act which, in my opinion, revealed too much of what was to come, left me (correctly) anticipating each simplistic plot twist. I wish there had been more mystery to our narrator, or that he didn’t continually expose himself as a deceptive fraud. It also didn’t help that, because the narrator was the perpetrator in his last book, I was expecting Michaelides to pull the same tricks again (and was disappointed when he actually DID).

Overall, with the success of TSP, it was essentially an impossible feat for the author to surpass his previous work—and The Fury confirmed this. While I will excitedly await Michaelides’ next work, I’’ll stick to recommending TSP over this one.

Lana is a former actress who becomes fed up with the dreariness of London and invites her husband, son and two best friends to her private island for an escape...or is it for something more sinister?!?!

The Fury is a story of betrayal, murder and revenge as told by Lana's best friend, self proclaimed author and romanticist, Elliot!!

I enjoyed the first half of The Fury, each chapter peaked my interest with more suspense but the second half is long, slow burn and not an enjoyable one! The narrator, Elliot, is hard to relate to and unreliable! In many instances, he continues with a part of the story only to backtrack and tell you that that was not what really happened! The book was pretty predictable and the ending anti-climatic. It's primary plus was that it was an easy read with short chapters.

Thank you Netgalley and Celadon Books for the E-ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

Alex MIchaelides has delivered once again! Dare I say I even liked this book more than The Silent Patient. The narration in The Fury is so unique because it broke the fourth wall between narrator and reader. As a narrator, Elliot Chase was completely unreliable, intolerable, and certainly suspicious. He tells a dramatic tale of his famous friend Lana Farrar and her vacation to an isolated island in Greece. Elliot, Lana, her husband Jason, best friend Kate, son Leo, and loyal house keeper Agathi, arrive on the island with secrets and motives that come into question when someone is murdered. This is a who-dunnit story, but the most fascinating part is WHY! There are so many twists and suspenseful moments in this books. The short chapters made it a bingeable read too. Pay attention to two fun cameos at the very end.

In theory, The Fury by Alex Michaelides has everything needed for a perfect, five star bingable winter read. Unfortunately, when all those wonderful elements were put together, the book fell a bit flat.

Unlikable characters can generally be saved by an interesting plot and twists and turns that keep readers at the edge of their seat. The twists and turns that I was so looking forward to after loving The Silent Patient didn’t quite materialize. They just did not have enough “Oomph” behind them to make up for the cast of unlikable characters. Much of the dislike for these characters stems from the unreliable narrator of the story. Repeatedly being told that the narrator was unreliable took away from the immersive experience as well. Each time it was mentioned, I was dragged right back out of the story and was only able to focus on the fact that not one character had a chance to be well rounded.

That being said, the narration style did lend itself to creating an atmosphere on the island. Every once in a while there was a glimpse into what the story was meant to be, a thrilling mystery. When those moments happened, usually when the island was being described, it was a breath of fresh air.

In conclusion, I just can’t recommend this book when Alex Michaelides has the Silent Patient available, which is just so much better of a read.

⅖ stars

Thank you to Netgalley and Celadon Books for the opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

I haven't read the Silent Patient or Michealides' other works, but I've heard such good things that I was excited to get this as an e-ARC. Unfortunately, I just don't think this book was right for me.

Content warning:

- Alcoholism
- Death
- Drug usage
- Intimacy
- Mental illness
- Murder
- Violence

The Fury starts with a quirky introduction from our narrator, who claims he’ll try to tell the story well, but that we can’t fault him for messing up. He claims this is the kind of story you would tell your friend over drinks at the bar.

We learn that he’s friends with a famous movie star, Lana. According to our narrator, Lana is going for a walk when she decides to invite her friends to a vacation on her personal island. She invites Kate, who’s starring in a Broadway play, Elliot, our narrator, and brings her husband Jason and son Leo.

The group arrives on the island and meets Nikos, the caretaker who’s been alone on the island for years, looking after the property. Agathi also comes along—she’s a Greek woman who’s been a nanny and housekeeper for Lana since they first came to the island.

As they move around the island, the characters have some moments of feeling wary, like someone is watching them. Jason, Lana’s husband, has taken up shooting and hunting as a new hobby, and the sounds of him shooting can be heard throughout the island.

Lana and Leo work on planting a garden on the island, then the members of the group have a picnic. Kate is late because she’s constantly drinking, and that’s when she comes across Jason practicing his shooting. This is when we learn that the two of them are having an affair. As they talk, and then kiss, Jason gets the feeling that someone is watching them.

The wind is picking up around the island as the day goes on, and the group decides to have dinner at a fancy restaurant on a nearby island. during dinner, tensions are high, and Kate makes a bit of a spectacle of herself. They take a boat over there, and the boat lurches on the ride back because of the wind, which the book refers to as “the fury.”

Agathi goes to bed for the night, and when she wakes up, she finds Lana’s body in a pool of blood beyond the olive grove. Leo arrives and screams, holding his mother’s body. The narrator feels for a pulse, then tells Jason and Kate as they arrive that Lana is dead.

After discovering Lana’s body, the narrator re-winds again and retells the story, detailing how close he and Lana are as friends. We learn that Lana found out about Jason and Kate’s affair before the trip, and went to Elliot to ask what they should do. Elliot came up with a plan to punish Jason and Kate for what they did—by faking Lana’s death. So she invites everyone to the island and they go along with the plan.

Elliot has his own plans, however, and goes behind Lana’s back to try and manipulate the situation further. He plans to agitate Kate and get her to shoot Jason so Lana can marry Elliot instead.

Tensions escalate, and Elliot manages to get a gun into Kate’s hand, and has her walking down to Jason, ready to confront him. Before Elliot’s plan can unfold, Nikos finds him watching the scene from the bushes, and makes him walk out to where Kate and Jason are.

They all confront him, revealing how he’s been trying to manipulate things, and Jason and Kate decide they’re going to kill him instead. Elliot screams for Lana to help him, but she appears and reveals that she’s been in on this plan from the beginning.

Once again, we reverse to the beginning of the story and learn new facts. After Lana went to Elliot and came up with the plan to punish Kate and Jason, she discovers Elliot’s journal, in which he tracks the affair (which shows that he’s known about it for longer than he lets on). He also details his plan to kill Jason and marry Lana instead.

Lana is horrified by this, and goes to Kate, who admits she’s been having an affair with Jason and apologizes for it. Lana explains what she discovered about Elliot, and Kate devises a plan to get back at him in the same way.

We fast forward to the present moment, where Elliot is being humiliated by all of them. They leave him on the dock after he’s wet his pants and Lana tells him to get off the island, then the group goes back to the house to have lunch. Elliot turns into “the fury” like the wind around the house and goes in with a shot gun, killing Lana for real this time.

We end the book by discovering Elliot is in jail and is telling us this story from there.

I loved the idea of the layered scheming on paper, but I don't think The Fury nailed the execution. It was hard to feel invested in Lana double-crossing Elliot when I didn't feel invested in any of the characters. They weren't lovable and relatable, nuanced and layered, or even just plain hatable-they felt lke cardboard cutouts rather than real people.

Elliot also comes in with all these cheeky interjections that I just don't think the character has earned. Rather than being charming or even deliciously awkward, they just served to make me cringe and want to put the book down. I felt like I was never rooting for or against Elliot, and rather just waiting for him to be done talking.

All in all, The Fury was not the right book for me. I felt the characters were too flat, like they were pieces moved around a chessboard, rather than complex and interesting people. Because this wasn't character-driven, I felt it became plot-driven, but the plot was just not enough to redeem it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC.

Personally, I will always read anything Alex Michaelides writes. I love a good unreliable narrator and he excels at it. I jumped at the chance to read this early, and I was not disappointed in the slightest. The dynamics between the characters kept me reading constantly when I could, and I devour murder mysteries, so I loved it!

This was a fun book to read.
I always enjoy the stories Alex Michaelides has to share with the world.
I especially think that he writes unreliable narrators very well.
This felt similar to to And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, in the way that we get to meet our cast of characters individually before getting the the mystery element. However, everything you find out about the characters beforehand, though it may not feel like it at the time, is relevent to the actually mystery story.