Another powerful student review, y’all, comes from Lara—who has read a book that has captured my attention simply because it tackles a topic that is hard to wrestle with: Death.
Check it out—and be sure to tell Lara what you think of her review!
Mr. F
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Hi! My name is Lara and I recently read
Fever: 1793. This book is about trying to survive in a world where almost everyone has fled or is sick and dying.
Mattie, a girl living in the 1790’s that works in a coffeehouse with her mother, has to deal with more than she ever imagined. This book took me into another world that left my pulse pounding.
There is no doubt that this is one of my favorite books. The issues are real, but utterly emphasized. Feeling completely alone, deaths of people you love- they are all real. But in Fever: 1793, they are on a huge scale. It was a powerful book that kept me turning pages until late into the night!
Be warned, though- this book made me tear up because it is very sad.
It all begins when Mattie hears that the yellow fever is spreading. Everyone tells her it is a rumor. She ignores it all until her mother gets ill with Fever.
When she watches her mother get bled, a crude medicine where doctors take blood to get rid of poisons in the body (it didn’t work, in fact it killed many fever victims) her mother is asleep, but later her mother wakes up and orders her to go to the country with her grandfather.
Mattie and her army veteran grandfather set off for the country, to the Ludington’s farm- a friend of her mother’s. When the carriage they are riding in stops so a doctor can make sure they don’t have Fever and don’t spread it outside the city, Mattie’s grandfather has a cough and they are forced to the side of the road.
Mattie knows her grandfather is weak, so she goes to get water and berries. As Mattie is gathering fruits, which she found after the berries, she begins to feel cold. She then blacks out.
Mattie wakes in a giant room full of Fever victims with two doctors speaking French and helping patients. Mattie realizes that she has Fever. Mrs. Flagg, a nurse that brang her food to her, is a kind old lady that Mattie’s grandfather likes.
Mattie recovers because the French doctors knew how to treat patients better and fed them well. Mattie and her grandfather head for home.
When Mattie gets back to the coffeehouse, it is deserted and things are stolen. Her mother has run off. She and her grandfather live with little food.
One night, thieves break in again only to be scared away by grandfather and his sword. But, grandfather dies. Mattie is devastated and buries him in his nightclothes.
Mattie finds a little girl named Nell, whose mother is dead. She takes care of her, because the orphanage is full. Then, Mattie finds Eliza, who used to work in the coffeehouse. They work together to help ill people until Nell and Eliza’s nephews get sick. They try everything. Mattie is so tired that she just rests on the ground for a moment outside…
Mattie wakes to find a cold, light dusting of frost on the ground. She brings the sick children outside. People begin to pour into the city as the word spreads.
Finally. Mattie’s mother returns. They are reunited and Mattie informs her of her grandfather’s death. She is sad, but happy to see Mattie. This book has a bittersweet ending, because many people have died but even more have been reunited.
One of the most frequent concepts woven into the book was facing death– the death of others, the possible death of you.
Sickness.
Heat.
Death.
The horrible truths echo around the book as if they we words spoken into a cave. There is happiness at the end, which seems even happier after all of the sadness.
Fever is a must-read.
My Rating for Fever 1793: Way 90
I Am ALWAYS Right 