The Fever
From Goodreads: The panic unleashed by a mysterious contagion threatens the bonds of family and community in a seemingly idyllic suburban community.
The Nash family is close-knit. Tom is a popular teacher, father of two teens: Eli, a hockey star and girl magnet, and his sister Deenie, a diligent student. Their seeming stability, however, is thrown into chaos when Deenie's best friend is struck by a terrifying, unexplained seizure in class. Rumors of a hazardous outbreak spread through the family, school and community.
As hysteria and contagion swell, a series of tightly held secrets emerges, threatening to unravel friendships, families and the town's fragile idea of security
Last month I went into a mild Megan Abbott obsession. I had read Dare Me sometime last year and had liked it and during a trip to the library picked up the two other Megan Abbott titles that were on the shelf.
As I wrote in a previous review, I liked the first book I read, The End of Everything but when I started reading The Fever I went into a mild obsession reading it whenever I had a few spare moments.
After reading some Goodreads reviews, it seems a little weird that I got into the book as heavily as I did. It was NOT a very popular read...or rather, it was one of those books where the reader loved it or hated it. There were not many average, three star reviews. Out of curiosity I read the one star reviews and although it didn't change my enjoyment, I could see where the reviewers were coming from. For a book that was considered a thriller it had been kind of slow paced. The narrator switched from Dennie to her brother and their dad...a move that was not popular. And finally, a lot of readers didn't like the end.
As I was reading The Fever, I forgot that I was reading a Megan Abbott book. Instead, I felt as though was reading a Tom Perrotta book, something similar to The Leftovers. I doubt that that was an intentional thing, but it was the thing that kept drawing me to continue to read the book. The ending was definitely Megan Abbott, and definitely not a Tom Perrotta ending...and that wasn't a bad thing although I'm still not sure about the end. I'm not sure if it truly fit with the rest of the novel, but I guess it worked.
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