Fever 1793: by Laurie Halse Anderson- the novel takes place in the year 1793, in late summer in Philadelphia. The main character is a stubborn and a bit lazy teen girl named Matilda Cook, who dreams of leaving Philadelphia for France and making the coffee house into the hottest spot in town. she lives in and works in a coffee house with her mother, Lucille Cook, and grandfather Captain William Farnsworth Cook. At first the yellow fever is just a supposed rumor until Mattie and her mother visit one of their friends house, the Ogilvie’s, and one of their daughter’s falls ill from the fever. Later, Mattie’s mother catches yellow fever and Mattie and her grandpa are forced to leave town and stay in the country until they can return. The farmer they travel with soon abandons them on the side of the road and they are left for dead. Mattie soon goes unconscious and wakes up in a hospital bed at Bush Hill (a mansion turned into a hospital for fever victims.) Mattie and her grandpa decide they must return home to search for Mattie’s mother and hope she has recovered. When she get’s there, the town is abandoned and her mother is missing, with no way to contact her, Mattie and her grandpa stay at the coffeehouse. Soon enough Mattie’s grandfather dies after a couple of thieves broke into the house. Mattie goes in search for her friend and fellow worker Eliza, an African-American woman and the cook at the coffeehouse. Before she finds Eliza, she discovers an orphaned toddler named Nell, Mattie finally finds Eliza and together they stay at her house and care for Nell and Eliza’s twin nephews Robert and William. The children soon fall ill with yellow fever and so Mattie suggests they go to the coffee house for fresh air and away from the water, where the disease started. Mattie and Eliza care for the sickly kids until the winter frost finally comes. The frost cures the town of disease and people start to come back and the town is alive once again. Motherless, and jobless Mattie comes up with the idea to reopen the coffeehouse with Eliza at her side, she even receives help from her friend and crush Nathanial Benson, a brown haired boy that works for a painter in the town, Mr. Peale. Once the coffeehouse is up and running Mattie’s mother returns home, but is too weak to stay in charge of the coffeehouse, so Mattie takes over for her. In the end, Eliza, Robert, William and Nell move in with Mattie and she continues to run the coffeehouse as she always wanted it to be.
One of the theme's in the novel is suffering, because when the fever spreads Matilda suffers both physically and emotionally. The fever makes her body thin and weak, her skin becomes pale and her face thin and gaunt, but it’s not just her physical self that is affected by this illness it also affects her emotionally and mentally. She loses both her mother and grandfather, and goes into a state of depression and almost gives up hope. And when she was stranded with her grandpa she had hallucination’s and nearly died if it hadn't been for her grandpa.
I learned to never give up hope and that if you put your mind to it, you can find a way out of a struggle. Like when Mattie lost her grandpa, she was able to find Eliza and reopen the coffeehouse and take care of herself so she wouldn't be forced to go to the orphanage.
I really enjoyed the story overall, I really liked Mattie and Nathanial’s relationship, how you know they like each other and he flirt’s with her, I thought that was really cute. But my favorite part in the book was when Mattie discovered Nell and she was able to keep her in the end so that she wouldn’t have to stay in the orphanage.
One of the theme's in the novel is suffering, because when the fever spreads Matilda suffers both physically and emotionally. The fever makes her body thin and weak, her skin becomes pale and her face thin and gaunt, but it’s not just her physical self that is affected by this illness it also affects her emotionally and mentally. She loses both her mother and grandfather, and goes into a state of depression and almost gives up hope. And when she was stranded with her grandpa she had hallucination’s and nearly died if it hadn't been for her grandpa.
I learned to never give up hope and that if you put your mind to it, you can find a way out of a struggle. Like when Mattie lost her grandpa, she was able to find Eliza and reopen the coffeehouse and take care of herself so she wouldn't be forced to go to the orphanage.
I really enjoyed the story overall, I really liked Mattie and Nathanial’s relationship, how you know they like each other and he flirt’s with her, I thought that was really cute. But my favorite part in the book was when Mattie discovered Nell and she was able to keep her in the end so that she wouldn’t have to stay in the orphanage.
I rated the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.