The girls in Megan Abbott's The Fever have some issues with their hearts, and you will most likely find yourself dealing with some serious palpitations as you read.
High school student Deenie is sitting at her desk on a normal day, thoughts wandering all over the place, when one of her best friends, Lise, has a mysterious seizure in the middle of class. Later, she bites a school nurse and ends up in the hospital. And Lise is not the only one; girl after girl follows, each with a mysterious but similar group of symptoms. As fear in the town grows and parents and kids start to turn on each other, everything from bats to vaccinations to the creepy, algae-filled lake are blamed for the continuing sickness (and what exactly was Lise doing in the bushes--and with whom--on the morning she took ill?), but no one really knows what is going on.
Megan Abbott really gets the brutality of teenage girls, as well as how quickly people can begin to unravel when tragedy strikes; as terrifying as the mysterious illness was, it was also scary to read about the hysteria and confusion that sets in when you do not know what is happening (we have all seen this kind of thing on the news). In this story, secrets, crushes, and family tragedies also come to light.
Even though The Fever might technically be a Young Adult novel and is focused on young girls in high school, there is nothing childish about it. Megan also writes convincingly from a male perspective; Deenie's brother, Eli, is a stud of a high school hockey star, and her dad, Tom, is a teacher who has recently begun dating after a divorce from Deenie's mom. And the town, Dryden, is the perfect backdrop for a chilling story, as it seems like it is constantly misting, raining, or snowing, all while fog is rolling in.
If you are an older reader of The Fever, this might take you back to your own coming of age, and possibly bring up some painful teenage memories for you. There were not any mysterious fevers going around when I was a kid (or texting and YouTube, used to great effect in the book), but school tended to be terrifying in many other ways. Reading this as a mom, I could definitely identify with the parents (much like I did with the mom in Reconstructing Amelia, another terrific read) as they struggled with powerlessness to protect their daughters not only from the mysterious illness, but from the general evils in the world that seem to be lurking around every corner.
Try to start The Fever when you can read it straight through, which should probably only take a couple of hours; I tore through it in one day, finishing it over a plate of mashed potatoes at Tender Greens. I was creeped out even in the middle of a busy restaurant, and reminded that the ties that bind can also easily tighten around our necks.
