Review: Furious by Jill Wolfson

Title: Furious

Author: Jill Wolfson

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co. (Raincoast)

Publication date: April 16, 2013

Genre(s): Young Adult (Greek Mythology)

Source: Publisher

Format: eARC

Pages: 336

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Three high school girls become the avenging Furies of Greek legend.

We were only three angry girls, to begin with. Alix, the hot-tempered surfer chick; Stephanie, the tree-hugging activist; and me, Meg, the quiet foster kid, the one who never quite fit in. We hardly knew each other, but each of us nurtured a burning anger: at the jerks in our class, at our disappointing parents, at the whole flawed, unjust world.

We were only three angry girls, simmering uselessly in our ocean-side California town, until one day a mysterious, beautiful classmate named Ambrosia taught us what else we could be: Powerful. Deadly. Furious.

I have read my fair share of greek mythology centered around The Furies. I love Elizabeth Mile's The Fury trilogy but what is different about Furious is that it is told from the POV of one of the Furious, not the victims. That alone had me really curious to read it. For the most part Furious was a very entertaining and interesting read, the only downside is that the main character had a ton of flaws and the lack of a revenge plot. 

As with most of the greek mythologies I read, the protagonist doesn't initially know that her world is a greek mythology retelling, and this book is no exception. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with that. However my main problem was with the main protagonist's logic and actions as well as how the whole revenge plot was handled. Meg is a foster kid, her foster mom is the reason GIFs like this are made: 

Her foster mother treated Meg like a slave, she treated her cat 100x better. I could totally understand Meg's anger towards her as well as all the previous pent up anger and hatred for life in general because of what she went through in the foster care system. However, I just wished we delved a bit more in her past, I did get the overall picture, but I just wanted to know more, to really sympathize and invest in Meg's wellbeing. Since this is based on The Furies, another two girls were introduced to complete the trio. The other two, Alix and Stephanie, we know very little about and also find out very little about in the end. There is also an additional character in this novel and it is Ambrosia. Ambrosia is like the manager of a sports team. She was actually the one that brought the three girls together and introduced them to each other. I was able to forget about the lack of character depth because I believed that was when things get good, which is through their revenge. 

Unfortunately, I have to say that their revenge was very bland and the same type of revenge was used for every single person they chose as their victim. This revenge scheme consisted of chanting a few songs while holding hands and making the target, i.e.: victim, start repenting and begging for forgiveness from the person/people he/she tormented/bullied/pried on. This happened every single time. The best part in the retelling of The Furies is the revenge. I was so disappointed.. I still expected something different every time they targeted someone else.. but that didn't happen. 

I have to point out that even with all these weaknesses I still enjoyed the novel. It was a very fun and fast read. I quite enjoyed how the trio's power and need for revenge turned them into such ugly souls, worse than the people they initially wanted to take revenge on. This book isn't perfect at all but it is a decent greek mythology, especially since a ton of research done by the girls is actually mentioned so you do learn a ton. The ending had a big showdown and while I don't believe everyone who deserved punishment got what they deserved, it was a fairly good ending. I would definitely recommend it to greek mythology fans who want a quick read and the retelling told from The Furies POV.