The Fever

Megan Abbott is a respected crime novelist and her novel from last year, The Fever, was highly acclaimed, but it didn't hit me on a gut level. Somewhat of an allegory for the Salem witch trials, this story of mass hysteria among high school girls sounds more intriguing than it is.

Set in the fictional town of Dryden, the main focus is on the Nash family. Deenie is a typical young girl, her older brother Eli is a star hockey player, and their dad Tom is a science teacher at the school. One day Deenie's friend Lise has some sort of seizure right in a classroom. Soon, other girls are having strange symptoms, everyone but Deenie.

Is it the HPV vaccination? Is it the dead lake nearby, full of algae? Or is there something more nefarious at work? This mystery carries the book along okay, but I found the characterizations thin. I finished the book two days ago and I couldn't tell you one thing about Deenie. Tom is also kind of a blank, except when he has an affair with one of the girls' mothers, who was the victim of domestic abuse and was hit in the face with a claw hammer.

When I read other reviews I feel like I read a different book. I wasn't hooked, and finished it out of a sense of duty than suspense. Occasionally there is a very well-turned phrase, such as describing the lake: "they found a dead dog on one of the banks, its fur neon, mouth hanging open, tongue bright like a highlighter pen."

If there'd been more lines like that, instead of a fairly routine teenage soap opera, The Fever might have been far more interesting.