I’m not entirely sure what to do with this book. Parts of it were infuriating. Noam is an idiot and I really have no idea why Dara likes him. The sexual abuse issues were dealt with oddly and glossed over for how serious an issue that is. The issue of race was also oddly dealt with and the issues about immigrants were from other parts of the US was odd. The main character was Latinix but race and how that relates especially to African-Americans was not addressed. Also, making the deep South the unwanted also reflects class in many ways that was not discussed. Most of the twists I saw coming so in the end I would give it a three, but I usually do not care enough to read the rest of three-star books series, and I do want to see how this ends so maybe a 3.5.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of The Fever King by Victoria Lee. I’ve voluntarily read and reviewed this copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Wow. What a story. The Fever King immediately captures your attention and keeps it throughout the book. A complex premise but not too complex that it becomes confusing. Suspenseful and thoughtful at the same time. The characters are not what they seem which makes for a compelling story.

Victoria Lee’s writing is fast-paced, clever and very detailed. So many unexpected twists and turns that will keep you on your toes. And the ending will blow you away. Patiently waiting for the sequel to arrive.

Sigh

I have to DNF The Fever King at around 25%. I don't even know what the hell I just read. I'm sorry, but that's the harsh truth. This book was a mess and it wasn't very good. I didn't enjoy it at all and I was never compelled into the story. I felt often confused and I just never really understood what was happening. I think this book needs some serious editing or maybe it's just me... Anyway, many readers enjoyed this book so you might too, but I just can't keep reading it knowing I could have spent that (limited) time reading a five-stars read instead of this.

I was so happy when I saw this book was available on Scribd as an audiobook. I received an ARC but I didn't manage to read it before the publication date (unfortunately).

(Thank you to the publisher for giving me an ARC of this book via Netgalley)

I loved everything about this book, from the complex and well-developed characters, to the frighteningly believable dystopian world, to the messages it contains about immigration, xenophobia, and the power of fear to shape our political realities. I will definitely be recommending this widely.

I think this just wasn’t for me. I can’t name any particular thing wrong with the book, but I started it and then just never wanted to pick it back up. I just wasn’t hooked by the story, even though the premise is pretty cool. I’d consider picking it up again later and see if it draws me then, but for now I’m DNFing

Political commentary? Dystopian fiction? A story about people with magic skills? The Fever King is all those, and some more…

I love books that are just a little bit crazy, full of twists and I feel like I can bond with the characters. Well, I got just that from Victoria Lee’s story.

In an alternate version of the US, where one can get infected by a virus that causes magical abilities (if you are in that tiny percentage that actually survives, that is), Noam is a sixteen year old teenager, living in a refugee camp. Yes, there’s a quite lot going on there.

Refugees are not welcome, or can’t leave, not quite sure, but nevertheless, their life is full of unpleasantness and hardship. When a virus outbreak pretty much wipes out the whole neighbourhood where Noam Álvaro lives, he’s the only one who survives… and wakes up with strange powers he doesn’t understand. I feel ya, dude. Took me a while to get my head around some stuff too.

Calix Lehrer, the minister of Carolinia takes him under his wings and while helping him catch up on school work, because even kids with superpowers need to study, becomes a quasi father figure to Noam. I absolutely loved this aspect of the magic skills. To use them their full advantage, witchings (people with magic) had to learn the actual science behind their powers. Noam, a technopath knew quite a bit about hacking and computers, but who would have thought that maths and physics will be the real deal!

Noam is such a cool guy. Mature, sweet, perhaps a bit naive, but also passionate. Rather than fighting against the government as a rebel, he takes this opportunity to take down the system from within. He’s a compelling narrator, but that’s also what makes the story confusing sometimes. We only know what he knows, and that’s not a lot. He’s basically the guy who haven’t heard of most people and basically goes around saying “who dis?” a lot.

Dara, the Brooding Guy with A Past is quite the enigma. The adopted son of Calix is not the friendlies dude around, but as they get to know each other with Noam, a very special relationship blooms between them. Noam is clearly fond of him, but can he be trusted? What’s behind all the secrecy?

Guys, this book was intense. I was changing my mind about certain people literally every chapter, guessing and then second guessing just what exactly they are up to. Bit by bit, I managed to draw some conclusions from diary entries and classified documents… only to start doubting everything again.

While I didn’t get a real feel about the world, I was immersed in all the plotting, double crossing and political intrigue. The story touched upon some topics that are quite relevant to us nowadays: refugee crisis, xenophobia were just a few of these.

With a sprinkle of sci-fi and a dash of dystopia, The Fever King was a great opening to a promising new series.

Wow, this was a great book! I really liked the characters and the introduction of the future world.

It was a great mix of science fiction and a little fantasy. I would recommend this book.

Can't wait for the next, need to know what happens to Noam!

Thank you Netgalley and Skyscape for providing me an ARC of this book, in exchange of an honest review.

The Fever King is a deeply political fantasy that I enjoyed a lot, despite being so slow.

It's set in a futuristic world where magic is a virus that kills most people. The ones that survive get powers of their own. And that's what happens to the main character, Noam, which I honestly loved a lot! He's a great character and I loved his presenting power, it was so unique. In fact, the whole "magic system" felt pretty unique and interesting to me and I loved how people had to understand how things worked before they could do it (although the physics explanation went a little over my head, sorry).

On another hand, all the other characters are pretty great as well and very diverse, which I loved. I was suspicious and disliked Dara (the love interest) at first but he ended up growing on me. He's a strong character and a strong person and I kind of want to protect him forever now, who would have thought.

However, although I loved the characters and the magic system, The Fever King was too slow! It makes some sense, it's a very character driven book and we had to get to know Noam well and all his motivations, but I wanted STUFF to happen!!!

Nevertheless, this book won me over in the end: I loved how political it was with all its intricacies and, that way, it makes sense it's so slow. The twists were well done as well, but I saw a few of them coming. It was engaging to me and I cannot reccomend it enough if you like your fantasy gritty, political and character-driven.

Something about this book really didn't work for me, which is a shame, as I think it will be a big hit! I didn't really connect with any of the characters enough to get invested in the dystopian side of things, and so I found the twists and turns didn't captivate me.

The story is set in a near future America, which has dissolved into different countries after a plague. Survivors of the plague gain magical powers, and become witchings, who are either revered or persecuted depending on location and the ideologies of different governments. There's a lot of discussion of class issues, both metaphorically with the powers and literally with Noam's background of poverty being juxtaposed with the government training facility for witchings. The government is, of course, corrupt, and Noam becomes embroiled in taking it down.

However, I didn't really care if he did or not, because I didn't care about him or his horrible life. With something like The Hunger Games, you root for Katniss against the Capitol because you get to know her and love her and she has something to believe in and live for. With Noam, I felt some sort of block because honestly, his whole world is just kind of unrelentingly grim, and he's got no personality outside of reacting to the grimness. His mother is dead, his father dies, he's an outcast at the witching facility because of his poverty and the fact that he's an immigrant... He doesn't ever think anything other than how horrible everything is.

I also did not like the relationship between Noam and Dara - I didn't think Dara was particularly nice at any point, and their feelings for each other seemed to come out of nowhere. Props for having a m/m relationship in YA, and props for Noam stating his bisexuality on-page, but this wasn't enough to save the relationship for me. I don't like the use of rape/child abuse as a substitute for character backstory, either, and I felt that the story approached this (by having a character's behaviour throughout the whole book be explained by his past abuse).

ALL OF THIS BEING SAID: I think this will be a hit with teens looking for a grittier sci-fi/fantasy novel. I think that there's a huge need for dystopia at the moment to provide a lens to examine issues like racism, immigration, corruption in government. And it isn't a bad book, at all. It's got good pacing and a lot of originality. This is all on me and the fact that it managed to tick so many elements I dislike.

Amazing book, I was expecting great things but it blew my expectations and gave me even more than I imagined!

Victoria Lee does what few have done in the last few years. She has written a dystopian novel that is as alluring and magical as any fantasy novel found on the bookshelves today.

This book gripped me from the very first page. The intricate world building, the dramatic irony and the layers and layers within the main characters make this book a real gem.

The structure of the book is reminiscent of Ursula Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness. The snippets in between seem confusing at first but as we learn to navigate Carolinia’s microcosms, the audio recordings and letters become a glimpse into the truth of the fever and its origin which sheds light on the story’s most complex character.

I was shocked when I couldn’t put the book down and when I had to go to sleep, I found myself dreaming about the book and when I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it. Constantly. This book has to be the best book I have read all year. It even beats the Wicked King and that’s saying something. I ordered my physical copy as soon as I’d finished reading the book and it should arrive in the first week of May. Perfect timing for a reread!

I would recommend this book to everyone, literally everyone!

link to my full review: https://mousethatreads.wordpress.com/2019/04/26/hottest-read-of-the-year-so-far-the-fever-king-a-review/

I feel like the ending of this book short-circuited my brain, and now I don’t know how to word.

This book was kind of a combination of fantasy and sci-fi with a dystopian-ish or post-apocalyptic world in which the US is divided and separated with wastelands of Quarantine Zone between the livable areas. Outbreaks of magic sometimes spread and kill people, only sparing a few each time who survive and develop supernatural abilities.

It was grittier than I expected it to be, and the whole thing was so unpredictable. I was on edge almost the whole time I was reading because, like Noam, I wasn’t sure who to trust or what everyone’s plots and plans were. Nothing was obvious, but it also wasn’t a forced kind of mystery. There did reach a point when I realized certain things, but even then, there was no lack of tension and unpredictability, especially with that intense ending.

The book was also very relevant to our world. The main character, Noam, is the child of refugees and spends the whole book fighting for their rights, and the author themselves has said the story is about “the intersection of intergenerational trauma and personal trauma.” Although I cannot speak to the portrayal of those things, what I can say is that they were very much the backbone of the book. For this reason, there was a fair amount of world-building and politics. Also for this reason, there are a lot of content/trigger warnings, and the author’s list can be found here. I would call this mature YA because of all the heavy themes and topics it handles.

But for all its politics, this book was also very focused on and driven by the flawed characters. Noam with all his roughness and passion and righteous anger. Dara with his brittleness that he covered up with coldness and alcoholism. Lehrer with his mysterious past and his smooth control in all situations. There’s POC and LGBT+ rep since all three characters are queer and Jewish, Noam is Colombian, and Dara has brown skin. The relationships between characters were well-written too.* And one thing this book does exceptionally well is illustrate the way good people can be pushed into doing bad things. It also makes you question where exactly the line should be drawn if one is doing bad things for a good reason.

The magic added another interesting element to the story. There were all different ways someone’s powers could manifest, and using magic was largely dependent on understanding the science behind it (though I’m not clear on whether any witching could develop any power if they decided to learn the science). For example, Noam was a technopath because he was good with computers and programming.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and the grit and heaviness of it. The characters were three-dimensional and flawed, the mystery and tension pulled me in, and I definitely want to know what’s going to happen next!

The Fever King follows 16 year old Noam, who survives a magical fever and wakes up with powers. He is sent to a government complex where he is going to learn to use his powers, and takes the opportunity to infiltrate the government. He also is caught between working for the ministry of defense and falling for his adoptive son. Where does his loyalties lie?

I think The Fever King is an interesting book, but falls a bit short for me. I wasn’t engaged enough in the story and the characters, it feels too much like a book I’ve read before. I managed to guess most of the plot and wasn’t really entertained throughout the book. I think the magic system is fascinating and now that we have established the world and things have been revealed, the story can go to interesting places. Maybe the sequel will fall in better tastes for me, when I eventually pick it up. I can still see a lot of people enjoying the story, but it didn’t really reach great heights for me. 2.75-3/5 stars.

Thabk you to Netgalley and publisher for this advance copy for an honest review!

First let me say I love Noam...a biracial, bisexual jew! What a mix! Also Dara his slow to build romance.

The cover isnt one I'd normally gravuate to but I'm happy with the result. The action starts as soon as you open the read and that's odd for me but the world catches up well enough. The last quarter of the book was jam packed and the ending 😲😲😲 now to wait for book 2!!

I'd definitely recommend this to teens like my 16 year old.

*thank you to Skyscape Publishing and Netgalley for the free book in exchange for an honest review*


I tried to give this book the old college try. Twice. But for some reason, I couldn’t get into it. The premise sounded really interesting but I don’t think it was well executed.
This nook does has a huge following for a reason, so perhaps it just wasn’t for me.

This was the lgbt dystopia book I needed!
I went into this knowing nothing about it. After the first chapter I realized this book was about a disease (I know sometimes I should read titles of books..). This book was amazing!

The magic system is so original and well worked out! And the author does a great job in explaining this system without it being info dumping. They way it is explained in the story feels really natural!
The world is based on the US, so that is easy to imagine (never been there though). But it is in the future after some world disaster, so there are lots of places where no one lives. And different nations don’t trust each other etc. But what I actually wanted to say is that there is not much worldbuilding, but I would say that in this book it is not that necessary!
And then the characters! They were AMAZING! I loved them all. Noam is precious. I absolutely adore Dara’s character, he is such a ‘bad boy’, but actually he is really cute. All the other characters at their school (?) were also really interesting and well developed. There are some characters that you just don’t know if you should trust or not, which I always love. So at some point you just start agreeing with the main character, but you’re never sure haha.
I did see the idea of the reveal coming, but I did not see the why how coming, if that makes sense. Also the last chapter went really different then expected! In a good way! I cannot wait for the sequel, which will probably take at least another year..

4.5 stars.

The Fever King took me be surprise, and by that I mean I did not go into this imagining I'd hardcore love it. My reading experience itself was irregular since I had a lot going on, but my gosh, did the book pay off. A fascinating magic system, a flawed but likeable protagonist, a slow-burn romance, a xenophobic government and a country where nothing is as it seems...sign me up.

The beginning was slow and somewhat jarring—the action starts straight away without any world-building, so I wasn't entirely sure what was going on with Lee's post-America—but things became clearer the further I read. The story ended up being predictable in some ways, but did I care? Not one bit, because I enjoyed how those revelations unfolded, even if I'd already guessed at them. Lee's writing had a great flow once you got past the confusing bits, and I liked how she never shied away from topics like sex and cursing and poverty, plus her use of letters and video recordings. I found the magic interesting, not only because these abilities were more in line with superpowers, but because they were all founded in science, which made for an innovative concept. This is an extremely political book focusing on the forced removal of refugees, and while some people don't seem to like that aspect, I found it engaging. The tension did slacken somewhat during the second half, maybe because the book's driven by its characters just as much as it is by the plot, and while I never lost interest, I couldn't help but wonder when something regarding the Atlantian and Carolinian conflict would happen again.

Again, this is a very character-driven novel, and Noam sold it for me. Seriously, I adored this kid. He was funny and sassy, and I loved how Lee showed him balancing that line between doing what was morally right verses what would bring about the change needed to protect his fellow Atlantians. I do wish we'd gotten to see more of him actually developing his technopathic and telekinetic abilities, because as it was, there wasn't much of him growing into a witching. And Dara...he was such a trainwreck, and Lee showed his unhealthy coping habits without condoning them, and he was softer than I'd thought he'd be, and he just needs the biggest hug ever. Watching him and Noam go from hostility to friendship to eventual love gave me so many emotions. There were just a lot of complicated relationships in this book, all of them fascinating and most heartbreaking, and while some background characters needed development, others were very well crafted (I'm talking about you, Lehrer).

I loved that ending. Loved it. And I cannot wait to see where Lee takes us in the sequel.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Okay. This book fits so well with what I love: apocalyptic, sci-fi, fantasy, suspense... Bring magic in a futuristic world and you got me. Add a romantic story, and I'm hooked! A couple of times, I would have hidden myself behind my eyes if I was watching a movie. I devoured the book, loved loved loved!

Many thanks to Skyscape for my e-copy of this book through NetGalley.

The Fever King is difficult for me. On one hand, it's topically relevant, but on the other hand, it's at times just too much. There are many trigger warnings for this book, especially for YA. I think this story is too heavy for a YA audience. I read it, but I didn't like it that much. It's an overwhelming story, and it's not for me. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Received a free copy from Netgalley to review for the FFBC blog tour. I didn't post this during the tour because it's, uh....You'll see.

Content Warning: Xenophobia, War Crimes, Gun Violence, Ghettos, Mass Death, Death by Suicide, Ephebophile “Relationship” (older person preying on a young teen), Self-Destruction, Protest Repression (like Ferguson), and a bunch of awful dystopian shit.

TL:DR: I don’t know how I feel about this. I was hooked on reading & will be continuing the series most likely. But

I thought it was a clear metaphor with Hitler and anti-semitism. But then the person coded as Hitler turns out to be Jewish? So instead they were the Jewish uprising (and German because Jews were/are German still), and the original USA was Hitler's Germany? But then the Jewish lead is Evil Mastermind and the Jewish Noob has to save the day? So...power corrupts?!? IDK. I think my preconceptions fucked me over hard here. Don’t be like me.

--Very mature YA.
--Lots of shit to watch out for all ages.
--I like the magic virus and abilities stuff based on knowledge.
--If MC was a girl, I wouldn’t like her to rescue/save the self-destructo boy and jeopardize the cause.
--I get why Dude was so self-destructive, but damn was it hard to read
--Hard drinking & some drugging
--I don’t know how I feel about the assassination attempt/accidental murder/self-defense turned out.

gifset of winona ryder looking very confused at award show speech for stranger things.