The Fury by Alexander Gordon Smith Review

Posted July 26, 2013 by Asheley in Uncategorized / 5 Comments

The Fury by Alexander Gordon Smith
Series: The Fury #1
Published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Publish Date: July 23, 2013

688 Pages

Source: Publisher – Thank you!
Find It: Goodreads / Amazon / B&N

Imagine if one day, without warning, the entire human race turns against you, if every person you know, every person you meet becomes a bloodthirsty, mindless savage . . . That’s the horrifying reality for Cal, Brick, and Daisy. Friends, family, even moms and dads, are out to get them. Their world has the Fury. It will not rest until they are dead.

In Alexander Gordon Smith’s adrenaline-fueled saga, Cal and the others must uncover the truth about what is happening before it destroys them all. But survival comes at a cost. In their search for answers, what they discover will launch them into battle with an enemy of unimaginable power. (summary from Goodreads) 
The Fury by Alexander Gordon Smith 

My Thoughts:  The Fury by Alexander Gordon Smith has to be one of the creepiest concepts for a book that I’ve read in a long time, or perhaps that I’ve ever read. The story begins as – one-by-one – several characters are targeted by everyone around them. And by targeted, I mean everyone tries to kill them. Every person that is in their proximity goes after them, seemingly wanting to kill them all of a sudden, chasing them, biting them, clawing at them, drawing blood. Each of these characters has no idea why this is happening and to begin with, they all think they are alone in this. Each character’s strange episode is preceded by a weird thumping headache and then a strange silence. It’s really strange and completely horrifying and to begin with, there really is no way to tell what is going on – you just have to keep reading. (I loved that.)


So we are introduced to each character by way of alternating points-of-view, which is kind of nice. We get to learn about each of the several key players a little slowly so we can learn their personalities and all about them – initially, it seems like this may be a bit slow but if you trust this author, it turns out that the reasoning behind this is genius as chaos breaks out in the world (and believe me, it does). Feeling like he is losing his grip on reality, one character in particular, Brick, posts a question on an online forum simply asking why everyone is trying to kill him, wondering if anyone will even see it or if people will shrug him off as a lunatic. Before long, Brick has gotten answers to his question – real answers – and he realizes that he isn’t alone, which both terrifies him and makes him feel slightly better. Brick decides to cautiously share his hiding place and soon people just like him start to trickle in. They form a little group of people that are being attacked, of people that are “different.”



Now, the question that they all have is this: Why are people trying to kill us? Why do people act like normal until we get to within a certain distance to them, and then they morph into these feral creatures and try to attack us? As they try and figure this out, one or two within their group seem to act a bit “shady” – a bit more reclusive than others – and are going through some quite different changes. This raises some suspicion and some other questions as well. Once the transition of this couple (they are siblings) happens GOOD GRACIOUS STUFF GOES CRAZY and THE FURY HAS ALREADY BEEN UNLEASHED and it’s basically EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF kind of. I mean, I’m reading and my heart is BOUNDING. It’s still terrifying. And wildly interesting. And I couldn’t turn away from it



If I’m being vague – I KNOW and I’m not sorry. But you guys, this book is crazy and creepy and utterly horrifying and I enjoyed every page of it. What kind of weirdo does that make me? I’m not even sure. 



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The Fury by Alexander Gordon Smith is a very long book, coming in at just under 700 pages. It’s a chunkster, but it reads very quickly. IT READS QUICKLY, you guys. So there’s no need to take a look at the brick-sized book and shy away from it because of the size – doing so would be to sell yourself short if this is one that you think you might like. There are some really fascinating things in here if you are interested in good vs. evil and feral/zombie-ish type stuff (although I hesitate to call this a zombie book). The Fury is dark and gory and there is blood, but it is also fire and ice and ashes and the ocean and all kinds of crazy stuff. It all works together. survival and working together, and I found that combination really interesting. So very cool. 

Also interesting is how Smith made the villain a bit of a mystery to me. Until I got a chunk of the way through the book, I wasn’t sure who or what was the villain – was it the thing that was waging war on the people and the land (and I literally say thing because I’m not exactly sure what to call it – I love that) OR was it The Fury itself OR was it the population at large that turned feral when “the good guys” get too close OR was it the few bad apples in the bunch that just had to be different? I was constantly questioning myself and the story as I read, which is something that I don’t often do – I typically am a very surface reader – but this book really challenged me. Or maybe it is one that can be read on more than one level. Either way, I enjoyed the heck out of this aspect of it, trying to figure out exactly who or what was the real bad part and how the good was to defeat it. You guys, I’m a sucker for good vs. evil and this is almost 700 pages of it, right here. 

And these characters – these are everyday young people, people just like us. They were just going about their regular, everyday lives when all of a sudden, life changed. WITHOUT WARNING. There was no indication of a strange, odd mob-of-feral attack. But suddenly, each of these characters had to leave every single person and thing that they knew behind and trust people they’d never seen nor heard of before, and isn’t that always interesting? I mean, we love to watch stuff like that on reality TV, and here we have it played out in a story for us. It was no different. The time that Mr. Smith took in the beginning with his alternating POV’s – small vignettes, getting to know each character, these were so important as the story progressed because as each cast member began to make either great or awful decisions, I UNDERSTOOD WHY because I’d spent a little bit of time getting to know them. I loved this writing style for this particular story. It’s true, there are a lot of characters, but it’s also a very large book and I wouldn’t have expected it any other way. 

Ultimately, I have no idea how one has the imagination to write a story like this one. It is reminiscent to me of movies like this one (which I loved) and also some of Darren Shan’s books (which I also absolutely love) although The Fury really stands out on its own and is also different from these things. I have not had the opportunity to read Mr. Smith’s Escape From Furnace series, but I want to after spending some time in this author’s head with this book. He clearly has a mind for horror and has fun with it, and I think that is really cool. 

I recommend The Fury to fans of YA horror and thrillers, books with good vs evil, and long stories. There are some zombie-ish creatures and some very interesting, unconventional angels in there as well. I’m super glad that I took the chance on this one and I’ll be continuing with the series as it is released, knowing full-well that I’ll most likely be just as creeped-out with the next installment as I was with this one. 


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The Fury will appeal to fans of:

Young Adult Horror 
Thriller
Zombies & Angels (interesting ones!)
The Fury by Alexander Gordon Smith
is currently available for purchase.

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Asheley

About Asheley

Asheley is a Southern girl. She loves Carolina blue skies, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, and NC craft beer. She loves all things history but prefers books over everything.

You can find her somewhere in North Carolina, daydreaming about the ocean.

Find Asheley on Litsy @intothehallofbooks!

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5 responses to “The Fury by Alexander Gordon Smith Review

  1. I am definitely intimidated by the page count but glad to hear that it moves quickly. The concept for this book is also terrifying-I'm not sure I'm brave enough to read this thriller/horror novel but I will definitely keep an open mind and see if I can fit it in at some point.

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