"The Furies"

"The Furies"
Written by Natalie Haynes
Review written by Diana Iozzia

"The Furies" begins with our main character, Alex, who begins a new job at a remedial school in Edinburgh, Scotland. She has five unruly students that are fifteen years old: Jono, Ricky, Annika, Mel, and Carly. This starts out like a warm afternoon special or a new rendition of "To Sir With Love". Soon, it becomes all too obvious that this is not a happy special, and it begins to slowly turn into a well-paced psychological thriller. It's not as creepy as many other psychological thrillers, but you do have the "oh, goodness, where is this obsession going next?"

"The Furies" is written in Alex's present narrative and through diary entries and letters written by her unhinged student, Mel. It's so well-written and interesting to see the story slowly progress into a creepy obsession story, with the student, Mel, being the creepy. As I've mentioned, the progress into a psychological obsession is unexpected and certainly alarming. The story progresses with a pace that it unfolds naturally, rather than all too slowly or all too quickly.

You do have the cliched question of "Are the plays read in the class too relatable to these students?" It always just so happens that books and movies that take place in school have the class read something that relates to the characters' plot. For example, Bella Swan reads "Wuthering Heights" in "Twilight". In the Mara Dyer series, Mara's favorite book is "Lolita". This question is raised in "The Furies", but you soon find out that Mel's obsession with Alex is practically triggered by the Greek plays. Also, for a "student obsessed with teacher" book, I'm glad it's a female student obsessed with a female student, with no romantic or sexual reason for the obsession. All too often, one of the variables creates a crime of passion with their obsession, and I'm glad this is not the case.

In addition, you have very relatable characters. You have a great (one of my favorite) cities as the landscape for this tale. In addition, Alex's fiance, Luke, had died before the book began. The story of this unfolds very naturally rather than super intense exposition, that tells you where, why, how, and when he died in the first chapter.

This isn't the best book I've ever read, but I certainly enjoyed it. It seems a little less different than the book was described to be on the front cover. "Who becomes responsible when these students take the tragedies to heart, and begin inter-weaving their darker lessons into real life with terrible and irrevocable fury?" is written on the book jacket. I completely agree that this is a great description and it's certainly enticing, but it just isn't that accurate. Like I mentioned, liked the book enough, but I won't be reading it again. I'd be happily passing this one on.