The Fury

4.5 stars // Mr. Alex Michaelides, you are my Riley Sager.

Each of Michaelides' books so far are categorized as psychological thrillers. While I think that's accurate, I do believe they are not the typical stories that most people think of when hearing that genre label and so they go into his books with one reading journey in mind and get put off when they experience a different one. I've read all three of his books (The Silent Patient, The Maidens, and The Fury) and each have been a character study first and foremost. The murder is always a tool to dig deeper into the character's minds which is very much what a psychological thriller is, but his stories really do prioritize that study over the mystery/investigation aspect. His books are mainly introspection. You have to find the characters and the themes interesting or you're not going to like them.

I think the reason TSP (my rating - 5) has the highest avg rating is because the murder mystery is more fronted while also maintaining the character study as a significant portion. Meanwhile TM (my rating - 3.75) perhaps has a lower avg rating because while the investigation of the murder is prominent, it is quite lacking in terms of quality in that area and the character study that he loves to do is a bit dull. TF is very little murder (doesn't happen until 50% and you don't go back to it until around 80%) and while there's definitely mystery, the mystery isn't focused so much on the murder but instead the characters themselves. The character study is clearly THE main draw for Michaelides as the writer and therefore has to be the main draw for the reader. If you start this book for the murder mystery part (understandably) and then find out you don't care much for the characters, you will not like it, which is why I'm not surprised by or mad at the low avg rating. If you tend to find Michaelides' introspective writing style and his unreliable narrators appealing (like I do), you might really enjoy this. If not, you probably shouldn't bother.

I also didn't read the synopsis of TF so I went into it blind. I think that's a big part of enjoying his books as well. Not because I think the summaries give everything away (because they don't), but because they might mislead you as to what the pacing and structure of the story will be, which could contribute to giving you the wrong mindset going in.

I've also read both TSP and TF via audiobook, while I did a mix of audio and physical for TM. I don't think it's a coincidence that TM is my lowest rated of the three. I'll be continuing to solely use the audiobooks for Michaelides' future releases.