Wracked with Fury

Have you ever hurt someone? Have you ever caused someone pain, whether you meant to or not? Do you think sorry was enough to make up for what you did? You better hope it was or you could be the next victim of punishment in Elizabeth Miles' Fury series. 


Em is Gabby's best friend, but Em can't stop thinking about Gabby's boyfriend Zach. When Gabby goes away for the holidays, she feels guilty about the fact that she is looking forward to spending time with Zach and no Gabby. What she isn't expecting is that he might feel the same way about her. She knows it is wrong, but she can't help the way she feels, right? 


Chase has scraped and climbed his way to the top of the social pyramid with careful execution, but he stil lives in a trailer, a fact that he never forgets. His inspiration was a childhood friend named Sasha whose mother remarried and with the help of her stepfather's money, was flung to the head of the social staircase. But when Sasha throws herself from an overpass and is in a coma in the hospital, Chase struggles with the fact that he may have been involved in her decision to commit suicide.


Both have made mistakes. All their mistakes had reasons and regrets behind them, but they still chose to do what they did. Now things keep going wrong. Chase is haunted by a beautiful girl who he can't stop thinking about. No matter what she does to hurt him or humiliate him, he can't say no to her. When Em starts seeing a similar girl, she feels like she is being stalked. But what they don't know is that the girls following them are much more dangerous than they look...


Fury was an interesting book, but I found myself really confused in the beginning. Actually, I found myself really confused for about 2/3 of the story. I suspected the book was about Furies getting vengeance on bad people and when the couple of kids in the book were doing fairly bad things, I realized my suspicions were right. But I didn't really understand the connection between Em and Chase. It turns out there really wasn't much of a connection other than the fact that they went to school together and kind of knew each other. My other small qualm about this book was their "crimes" for which the Furies were after them. Once you get to the heart of what Chase did, you will agree that the jerk deserves to be punished, but Em's crime, while despicable, isn't exactly death-worthy. I mean, cheating with your best friend's boyfriend is beyond crappy, and you deserve to come back as a dung beetle in a future life, but to die for that? As a teenager (who are notorious for stupid decisions when it comes to hormones and emotions)? It seemed a little harsh. Not sure if I totally agree with that decision on the part of the author. In fact, I might have either had the second story more serious or eliminated it altogether. 


The writing was nice and clear, and the characters were multidimensional, which I appreciate. I loved the fact that the Furies' victims were not just pure evil- they were normal people, not all good, not all bad, who made bad decisions. I think it brought the human quality into the story where you almost felt bad for them by the time the Furies caught up with them, which made you feel confused as a reader because you knew they did crappy stuff. It was a great moral paradox to grapple with as a reader and made the stories less black and white. The way the story ended left me excited to see where the story will go in the next two books and opened the possibilities up tenfold. There is so much Miles can do from here! On a whole, great breakout series and look forward to more from this author.