Fever by Laurie Halse Anderson, (Yes the person who wrote both Chains and Forge. If you didn't read my blogs about them do it now while you still can!!!) is a very emotional book. It takes place in Philadelphia in 1793, when a huge yellow fever broke out and thousands of people died. Matilda, the main character, lives with her mother and grandfather and older sister and servants. Life is going perfectly well until one of their servants dies of a (not so) mysterious cause and people start spreading rumors of the yellow fever. Then, as many guessed, it escalated. The next day, hundreds of people are dying, and, of course, people like our main character are oblivious until it becomes an epidemic. Matilda's mother catches it, and tells Matilda and her grandfather to leave the city. While they're trying to get to the country, they get stopped and sent back.
In my opinion, this book is full of cliches and is definitely not Anderson's best work, although the author shows lot of disgusting details about the fever. If don't believe me, well here is an example, straight out of the book for you: "Mother flew off the pillows and was violently ill, vomiting blood all over the bed and floor."
Besides the fever, I wish there was more detail based on this time period.
Matilda doesn't go through much change, and her traits are also cliche main character traits such as, loving, perky, or nervous. There wasn't a climax either. Compared to Chains and Forge, Fever doesn't have the type of complex story line her other books do. In Chains, Isabel gets beaten, and clearly changes her attitude from beginning to end because of it. In Fever, though, Matilda loses her grandfather and one of her friends but her attitude does not change, she doesn't seem to grow. So maybe it's a good book, or maybe it's not. Anyway in the comments, please tell me what rating this book is to you after you read it, or even if you only read this blog. Bye and read me next Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment