Okay, here's the deal. When did people become "that" instead of "who?" I hear this on the radio on the TV ( and shouldn't news reporters know better )? and unless my memory is wrong, have even read it in places. Why? How hard is it to remember that people require a "who"? And here's another--myself instead of me. My boss did this all this time and it drove me crazy. Are we so afraid to be in the spotlight that we have to say, "So-and-so and myself did such-and-so?"
348 pages,
Published March 25th, 2014 by Momentum Books, Pan Macmillan
In the tradition of Divergent comes a novel about a world where negative emotions are stolen ... and only those with fury can stand up and fight. Eighteen-year-old Josephine Luquet wakes naked and covered in blood that is not hers on the same day every year—when the blood moon is full. Josi has not responded to the "Cure"—an immunization against anger mandated by the government—and believes herself to be a threat to others.
Then she meets Luke. Luke has had the Cure but seems different to the other "drones"—and he's dead set on helping Josi discover the truth about herself before the next blood moon. But time is running out. Is Luke willing to risk his life to be near her? Does he truly understand what violence she is capable of? Raw and full of passion, Fury is a story of love in a dystopian world, and how much we are willing to forgive in the struggle to remember our humanity.
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REVIEW
Reading Slump you say? I hand you this book and jump up and down waiting for you to get sucked in. It won't take long. The lure of the synopsis alone should tempt you. If not, you will get hooked almost instantly. I didn't expect this book, but wow. Let's begin with the fact that's it about feelings. Good and bad, we have to have both to understand and appreciate each, that's the argument. Well apparently the government in Fury has decided to inoculate people against negative emotions. The book is about the results.
Characters- Josephine/Josi- This is her story. Her parts of the story are heart breaking. Everyone has betrayed her from the time she was a child. She was in the foster system from a very young age but ran away as soon as she could and she's been running ever since. She is one of the few that hasn't been "cured" of her feelings. She doesn't know of anyone else that hasn't been "cured" but there are rumors. Every year, the night of the Blood Moon, she looses herself to some unspeakable transformation and wakes up the next day, broken, bruised and covered in blood. And every year, the damage to her body is worse. The damage to her mind, immeasurable.
Luke- We get Luke's point of view as well as Josi's in the story. I love it because he's telling a totally different story than Josi's. He is all about her. Finding a cure. Protecting her. Finding answers. Making her happy for as long as he can. He is amazing and suddenly makes everything clear. And he is keeping secrets of his own. Though he may not wake up bloody and bruised on the night after the Blood Moon, he has something just as big going on.
Anthony- The story is also told from his point of view. It might seem odd, as he is Josi's psychiatrist/therapist, but it actually works really well. He is what Josi calls "a drone." One of the population that has been inoculated against feeling. A lot of the story is him and Josi talking through her therapy. It's very interesting listening to his thoughts as Josi talks to him.
The World- Okay, this part was a bit tricky. It is hard to understand why the world is exactly the way it is. At some point there was a plague that destroyed the world and cities were walled up and people were inoculated against feelings. It was supposed to stop crime. But it hasn't. It's just stopped people from caring about it. No real feeling comes through. People don't grieve. Luke's mother remarking on the death of Luke's brother, her son: "I know it's true,...Your father hasn't laughed in years. Even before Dave. (the dead brother/son) I feel plagued by the thought that I might not be missing my son enough. I can't.......feel anything enough."(Chapter 13)
The highest form of government is called "The Bloods" but they aren't really explained. They seem to be all powerful, a bit like the FBI or CIA. They control everything. There are police, but they bow down to the power of the Bloods. There is also a very scary group of wild people called "The Furies" who most seem to think are an old wives tale, but they are like zombies. Eating human flesh and mindless in their chase for it, they are the only thing worse than the Bloods.
Not being "cured" makes a person unique in that they stand out as "abnormal", something is just off about them and a person's natural instinct is to avoid them. So Josi is left alone by everyone. She is very isolated and honestly, hopeless. The people in the world are completely mindless. They commit crimes and it doesn't even register with anyone. They can hurt each other and no one will come to the aid of the person being hurt. Josi cannot stand the way these people are, completely void of emotion, so calm it's eerie as if they are soulless.
The story- In a nutshell, it's the story about life in a world devoid of emotion. How people respond to pain, fear, shock, hurt, death, anger, anything negative is completely inappropriate or inadequate. It's about standing up for things you know are right despite the consequences. Luke's brother lived by a quote - " All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." He died by it too. It's the story of two men trying to save one girl from the terrible thing that happens to her on the night of the Blood Moon and about feelings.
My thoughts: So this really blew me away! The story starts out with Josephine talking to her psychiatrist, trying to explain to him how important it is that he separate her from her roommate in the asylum she is in and that even that isn't enough as the night of the Blood Moon approaches. She fears for the safety of all the people in the asylum because she turns into something other than herself, something more powerful, stronger, faster, smarter, something more than human and something inhuman as well. And she will kill everyone in the asylum if Luke doesn't get her out. Where Luke is, we have no idea. Not right then and not for a while. But finding out about Josi and her disorder is fascinating. I could not put this book down.
As I read, especially when Josi wished she had schizophrenia, I couldn't help but make comparisons to our world and mental health and feelings. We all think it would be so easy to just follow along blindly, yet it goes against our nature not to question beliefs and authority, especially at Josi's age of 19. For her, a diagnosis would make her life so much easier and for us, giving it a name would make it clear, we can excuse the behavior if it has a name, especially a mental illness. I was worried, hoping the author would tread lightly in this mine field. She did. She did an excellent job!!
Josi has an eidetic memory, so she is able to quote things word for word. When her psychiatrist, Anthony tries to feed her the company line she says: "Actually, Doctor,....that journal was written by Harold Connolly who has a PhD in philosophy, not a medical doctorate. So it's all personal conjecture, with no scientific basis. What makes anger a disease if hapiness and lover not as well?" I smile at Anthony and add, "Doctor Harold Connolly was also a religious fanatic----something that causes far more irrational thought than an emotion could. So how about we both refrain from calling this piece of dribble the truth?" (Chapter 3)
And another extremely relatable quote:
"Story of our civilization: all problems can be solved with a bucket load of pharmaceuticals." (Chapter 7) Now isn't that the truth! Don't try to fix anything just throw some pills at it. Didn't work? Throw some more pills at it. We are a pill popping nation!
Anyway, what I am trying to say is that I could find everything in this novel relevant to our world today. It was just neatly wrapped up in a dystopian with a great story. And that wasn't all! There were some beautifully poetic moments written in:
This apartment was empty when I first moved in but we have filled it with words, thousands and thousands of words, so that now the walls heave with the effort of containing them all. (Chapter 9)
Between a story you can completely immerse yourself in, characters that are distinct, memorable and likable and the relevancy of the story to today's world, I found this novel incredibly fascinating and I was unable to put it down. I saved two days to read it, but I couldn't turn it off to do anything else but read it until the end. This is a series, so this is the first book, but it leaves off at a good point. There is no way I will miss the next book in this series. I am already anticipating an incredible follow up! This is an amazing writer. Maybe it's something about authors from Australia, but this is another Aussie that has knocked it out of the park!
I received a free copy of this novel from the tour organizer for review. I was not compensated for my review. The opinions expressed are my own.
About the Author:
REVIEW
Reading Slump you say? I hand you this book and jump up and down waiting for you to get sucked in. It won't take long. The lure of the synopsis alone should tempt you. If not, you will get hooked almost instantly. I didn't expect this book, but wow. Let's begin with the fact that's it about feelings. Good and bad, we have to have both to understand and appreciate each, that's the argument. Well apparently the government in Fury has decided to inoculate people against negative emotions. The book is about the results.
Characters- Josephine/Josi- This is her story. Her parts of the story are heart breaking. Everyone has betrayed her from the time she was a child. She was in the foster system from a very young age but ran away as soon as she could and she's been running ever since. She is one of the few that hasn't been "cured" of her feelings. She doesn't know of anyone else that hasn't been "cured" but there are rumors. Every year, the night of the Blood Moon, she looses herself to some unspeakable transformation and wakes up the next day, broken, bruised and covered in blood. And every year, the damage to her body is worse. The damage to her mind, immeasurable.
Luke- We get Luke's point of view as well as Josi's in the story. I love it because he's telling a totally different story than Josi's. He is all about her. Finding a cure. Protecting her. Finding answers. Making her happy for as long as he can. He is amazing and suddenly makes everything clear. And he is keeping secrets of his own. Though he may not wake up bloody and bruised on the night after the Blood Moon, he has something just as big going on.
Anthony- The story is also told from his point of view. It might seem odd, as he is Josi's psychiatrist/therapist, but it actually works really well. He is what Josi calls "a drone." One of the population that has been inoculated against feeling. A lot of the story is him and Josi talking through her therapy. It's very interesting listening to his thoughts as Josi talks to him.
The World- Okay, this part was a bit tricky. It is hard to understand why the world is exactly the way it is. At some point there was a plague that destroyed the world and cities were walled up and people were inoculated against feelings. It was supposed to stop crime. But it hasn't. It's just stopped people from caring about it. No real feeling comes through. People don't grieve.
Luke's mother remarking on the death of Luke's brother, her son:
"I know it's true,...Your father hasn't laughed in years. Even before Dave. (the dead brother/son) I feel plagued by the thought that I might not be missing my son enough. I can't.......feel anything enough."(Chapter 13)The highest form of government is called "The Bloods" but they aren't really explained. They seem to be all powerful, a bit like the FBI or CIA. They control everything. There are police, but they bow down to the power of the Bloods. There is also a very scary group of wild people called "The Furies" who most seem to think are an old wives tale, but they are like zombies. Eating human flesh and mindless in their chase for it, they are the only thing worse than the Bloods.
Not being "cured" makes a person unique in that they stand out as "abnormal", something is just off about them and a person's natural instinct is to avoid them. So Josi is left alone by everyone. She is very isolated and honestly, hopeless. The people in the world are completely mindless. They commit crimes and it doesn't even register with anyone. They can hurt each other and no one will come to the aid of the person being hurt. Josi cannot stand the way these people are, completely void of emotion, so calm it's eerie as if they are soulless.
The story- In a nutshell, it's the story about life in a world devoid of emotion. How people respond to pain, fear, shock, hurt, death, anger, anything negative is completely inappropriate or inadequate. It's about standing up for things you know are right despite the consequences. Luke's brother lived by a quote - " All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." He died by it too. It's the story of two men trying to save one girl from the terrible thing that happens to her on the night of the Blood Moon and about feelings.
My thoughts: So this really blew me away! The story starts out with Josephine talking to her psychiatrist, trying to explain to him how important it is that he separate her from her roommate in the asylum she is in and that even that isn't enough as the night of the Blood Moon approaches. She fears for the safety of all the people in the asylum because she turns into something other than herself, something more powerful, stronger, faster, smarter, something more than human and something inhuman as well. And she will kill everyone in the asylum if Luke doesn't get her out. Where Luke is, we have no idea. Not right then and not for a while. But finding out about Josi and her disorder is fascinating. I could not put this book down.
As I read, especially when Josi wished she had schizophrenia, I couldn't help but make comparisons to our world and mental health and feelings. We all think it would be so easy to just follow along blindly, yet it goes against our nature not to question beliefs and authority, especially at Josi's age of 19. For her, a diagnosis would make her life so much easier and for us, giving it a name would make it clear, we can excuse the behavior if it has a name, especially a mental illness. I was worried, hoping the author would tread lightly in this mine field. She did. She did an excellent job!!
Josi has an eidetic memory, so she is able to quote things word for word. When her psychiatrist, Anthony tries to feed her the company line she says: "Actually, Doctor,....that journal was written by Harold Connolly who has a PhD in philosophy, not a medical doctorate. So it's all personal conjecture, with no scientific basis. What makes anger a disease if hapiness and lover not as well?" I smile at Anthony and add, "Doctor Harold Connolly was also a religious fanatic----something that causes far more irrational thought than an emotion could. So how about we both refrain from calling this piece of dribble the truth?" (Chapter 3)
And another extremely relatable quote:
"Story of our civilization: all problems can be solved with a bucket load of pharmaceuticals." (Chapter 7) Now isn't that the truth! Don't try to fix anything just throw some pills at it. Didn't work? Throw some more pills at it. We are a pill popping nation!
"Story of our civilization: all problems can be solved with a bucket load of pharmaceuticals." (Chapter 7) Now isn't that the truth! Don't try to fix anything just throw some pills at it. Didn't work? Throw some more pills at it. We are a pill popping nation!
Anyway, what I am trying to say is that I could find everything in this novel relevant to our world today. It was just neatly wrapped up in a dystopian with a great story. And that wasn't all! There were some beautifully poetic moments written in:
This apartment was empty when I first moved in but we have filled it with words, thousands and thousands of words, so that now the walls heave with the effort of containing them all. (Chapter 9)
Between a story you can completely immerse yourself in, characters that are distinct, memorable and likable and the relevancy of the story to today's world, I found this novel incredibly fascinating and I was unable to put it down. I saved two days to read it, but I couldn't turn it off to do anything else but read it until the end. This is a series, so this is the first book, but it leaves off at a good point. There is no way I will miss the next book in this series. I am already anticipating an incredible follow up! This is an amazing writer. Maybe it's something about authors from Australia, but this is another Aussie that has knocked it out of the park!
I received a free copy of this novel from the tour organizer for review. I was not compensated for my review. The opinions expressed are my own.
Charlotte started writing her children’s fantasy series ‘The Strangers of Paragor’ as a teenager and has since gone on to publish five novels. After a Masters degree in Screenwriting she wrote ‘Avery’, the first in her adult fantasy series ‘The Chronicles of Kaya’, published by Random House. She now lives in Sydney, Australia, and has just released a new dystopian sci-fi novel called ‘Fury – Book One of The Cure’, published by Momentum.
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