Fever 1793
Laurie Halse Anderson (2000)
“A fourteen-year-old girl must grow up overnight when yellow fever turns Philadelphia — the nation's capital — into a city of the dead.”
EraContemporary Young Adult
Pages251
Difficulty★☆☆☆☆ Accessible
AP Appearances0
Character Analysis
Mattie begins as a recognizable teenager — lazy, ambitious, resentful of authority — and ends as an adult in all but age. Anderson traces her transformation through action rather than reflection: Mattie does not decide to grow up; she grows up because the alternative is death. Her immunity after surviving the fever gives her a paradoxical freedom that drives the novel's second half. She is one of young adult literature's most convincing coming-of-age protagonists because her growth is forced, not chosen — and therefore more honest.