Novel Review: Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson

The fictional novel Fever 1793 written by Laurie Halse Anderson is narrated via the protagonist, Matilda “Mattie” Cook. Mattie is a fourteen year old, who lives with her mother and grandfather as a loved ones, they run a well-liked coffeehouse.

A series of events take place, which forces her to grow up quickly and go via struggles to keep her family and her family’s business.Mattie works in a coffeehouse ran by her mother, grandfather, and their maid Eliza. The Cook Coffeehouse outside Philadelphia becomes a haven for these fleeing from the fever sweeping across the city, also known as the yellow fever. The yellow fever took about ten% of its residents. The outbreak hit in August and didn’t lessen until November. When the fever initially strikes, some men and women leave the city, even though other folks don’t believe it is anything more than a typical fever that tends to strike each fall.

Mattie is just a regular teenager. As any other teenage girl, her body is changing, she can’t stand the sound of her mother’s voice, and she has a huge crush on a cute painter guy named Nathaniel Benson. The outbreak of yellow fever, though, creates an urgent predicament in the city she calls home. After recognized for its brotherly really like, Philadelphia is transformed into a nightmare of orphaned youngsters, thieves, and mass unmarked graves.

More than the course of the novel, Mattie experiences intense individual loss and comes face-to-face with death. She have to also fight the tide of panic and worry raging in the city–and within herself. To win the battle, Mattie has to gather each and every ounce of her courage, strength, and morality. A true test of who she is, the fever will become one particular of the defining moments of Mattie’s life. As the yellow fever epidemic continues to spread through her city, her mother becomes ill, Mattie and her grandfather try to flee the city. Nevertheless, her grandfather becomes ill, and then Mattie herself. As soon as Mattie has recovered, they return to the city, however, it is completely abandoned, and their home has been robbed. When they are attacked by robbers, Mattie’s grandfather passed away, and Mattie is left to her personal devices. On her way to the market right after burying her grandfather, she discovers a kid, Nell, who’s mother has died of the fever, and Mattie takes her in. Mattie tends to make contact with Eliza, who is caring for her brother’s sons, and stays with her and Nell. Soon, Nell and the twin boys come down with the fever, and Mattie and Eliza have to stop assisting other folks to care for them.

They move into the coffeehouse, and when all have recovered following the first frost, the city comes to life once again. Mattie asks Eliza to be her companion in obtaining the coffeehouse began again. Soon, her mother arrives from staying with relatives. Mattie believed she may have been dead, but the loved ones moves on soon after the tragedy of the fever fades away.