Book Review: Fury by Shirley Marr

Fury Publisher: Black Dog Books/ Walker Books
Publishing Date: May 1 2010
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Format: Paperback
Page count: 277

My rating:

4 of 5 hearts

Eliza Boans is sitting in an interview room, confessing to murder. That’s the premise of this book, and it’s totally awesome. We are told the story in a series of flashbacks: when new girl at school Ella joins ‘Lizzie’s little group of Lexi and Marianne, the harmony of the group is thrown askew. What leads these privileged girls to murder, and who is the victim? What could cause a girl with a bright future ahead of her, a large credit limit, an education at the most expensive private school in the city, to murder someone?

Fury just clicked with me. I really liked Eliza’s voice: that of a spoiled, lazy, entitled brat – but one who knows it. Eliza doesn’t pull any punches. She’s fully aware of her own bad attitude, her own rising anger. She openly jealous of her closest friends, and she vividly appears to hate her own mother. I really enjoyed reading Eliza’s journey – her mistakes, her selfishness, her attempt at redemption, her overwhelmingly fierce loyalty to her friends. I think I like books with party scenes because they are full of all the drama I sought to avoid when I was a teen.

The writing was mostly pretty clean, and it was a lot smoother than Marr’s sophomore novel, Preloved. However the dialogue was often confusing – sometimes I wasn’t sure who was talking because an extra break was inserted or a lack of beat before dialogue that could have indicated who was speaking was ignored. However for the most part the book was easy to read and I devoured it in a day. It’s my kind of thing, you know?

Overall if you like Mean Girl stories, or stories about the downfall of a popular girl, or even a good mystery, I think you might enjoy this. I certainly did, and I am looking forward to more of what Marr can produce.

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Nemo
Nemo

About Nemo

A lover of kittens and all things sparkly, Nemo has a degree in English Literature and specialises in reviewing contemporary, paranormal, mystery/thriller, historical, sci-fi and fantasy Young Adult fiction. She is especially drawn to novels about princesses, strong female friendships, magical powers, and assassins.

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