Title: The Fever King
Author: Victoria Lee
Type: Fiction
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, LGBTQ+
Publisher: Skyscape
Date published: March 1, 2019
A complimentary physical copy of this book was kindly provided by Thomas Allen & Son in exchange for an honest review.
In the former United States, sixteen-year-old Noam Álvaro wakes up in a hospital bed, the sole survivor of the viral magic that killed his family and made him a technopath. His ability to control technology attracts the attention of the minister of defense and thrusts him into the magical elite of the nation of Carolinia.
The son of undocumented immigrants, Noam has spent his life fighting for the rights of refugees fleeing magical outbreaks—refugees Carolinia routinely deports with vicious efficiency. Sensing a way to make change, Noam accepts the minister’s offer to teach him the science behind his magic, secretly planning to use it against the government. But then he meets the minister’s son—cruel, dangerous, and achingly beautiful—and the way forward becomes less clear.
Caught between his purpose and his heart, Noam must decide who he can trust and how far he’s willing to go in pursuit of the greater good.
⤖ My Review ⬻
Victoria Lee’s The Fever King was unlike anything I have read before! I would also like to note that it felt like an adult read more times than YA for me–not because of graphic content, but rather the way in which it was written, the atmosphere, characters, setting. I’m not sure how to describe it beyond that.
I really appreciate and definitely enjoyed the amount of detail that went into the worldbuilding in The Fever King. A lot of thought went into the history of this dystopian world as well as into the futuristic setting, the magic system/virus (which, by the way, I find to be such a cool concept!) as well as the characters, and plot itself.
And I now know with certainty that Victoria Lee is great at describing settings and characters, because I actually found a webcomic version of this book on WEBTOON by chance while looking for some fanart and I had imagined almost everything exactly the way in which it was depicted in the webcomic! I think that only difference I would say was in the way that I imagined the minister’s son (I won’t use his name because reasons).
On a last note, I also wanted to come back to the atmosphere and mood of The Fever King. I found it to be quite dark, but found this to be quite enjoyable! I normally gravitate toward books that have a bit of a lighter tone, or I’m left feeling a bit more uplifted and entertained by lighter books usually, but a dark book will come along that creeps its way into my heart and brain and won’t let me stop thinking about it. And let me tell you, I definitely can’t stop thinking about The Fever King and can’t wait to pick up The Electric Heir.
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Thank you for reading my review! Have you read this book? What did you think? And if you haven’t read it yet, do you plan to? Let me know in the comments!
Great review Flavia, its great to know there’s a lot of detail given to developing the world. I really need to pick this one up!
Thank you!! And thank you so much for commenting 🙂 I hope you’ll enjoy this one when you do pick it up!