The Fever by Megan Abbott

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


When the female students of Dryden High start coming down with a mysterious and frightening ailment, the whole community is thrown into mass hysteria as medical experts try to discover the cause and try to keep the rumours and accusations to a minimum. Is it the new and highly controversial HPV vaccine which is causing the girls to have fits? Or is it the lake that has been condemned as unsafe but is still an illicit draw to the youth of Dryden? Or is it some unknown virus that will eventually affect every female teen in the town? Whatever it is you can be sure that when the media get hold of the story and with wild insinuations being thrown around there is certainly going to be fever.
Deenie is just a normal girl living with her older brother Eli and her teacher dad Tom when the Fever hits and as it mounts the reader sees the effect it has on the school and town through the eyes of this family. Both Deenie and Tom are caught up in the angst and turmoil of emotions encountered in adolescence when their sexuality is awakening and confusion rife. Dad Tom sees the kids he teaches and has known for years growing up and becoming sexual beings and it leaves him bewildered too. There are no guidelines for parents, teachers or the teens about growing up and how to handle it, just as there no guidelines for the fever that has taken over the town.
As the story unfolds, secrets are uncovered, feelings laid bare and we discover what really lays behind the Fever but until that point the reader is teased and tormented as much as the poor population of Dryden.
This is the first book I have read by Megan Abbot but I doubt it will be the last. From the first page with insinuations well under way in the very first sentence this novel gripped me. As a parent of teens myself it scared and worried me and I could absolutely understand Tom and his feelings. No one wants their babies to grow up and become sexual beings and there is no book you can buy for advice, at best you wing it and hope you’ve done the best you can. I had total sympathy for Tom. I also sympathised with Deenie and her anxieties and it was very interesting to see things from a teenage boy’s point of view. In the world of adolescence there is no black and white and I believe this book makes that point crystal clear. The world of adolescence is world unto its own and even the people in it are not entirely sure what’s happening so how can an adult know, for once you’re out of that world you do forget, whatever your intentions.
I firmly believe after reading it that every parent should read it and think. Although probably not the intention it did make me question my own beliefs and opinions and look at the teen world in a different way because it really resonated with me that no matter what you think you know about your family and friends, you really don’t. Of course it’s also a great lesson in just how hysteria grows and how the media propels that. It only takes one person to believe something for it to gain ground and take off and then be twisted out of all proportion. This story is so plausible it is quite frightening but for me the telling part was not so much the Fever itself but the effect it has; the background, the feelings and relationships of the people involved.
It’s a book I shall continue to think about and probably shall read again and well deserving of its 5 star review from me.
Thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company for the ARC of this book.