Meet Kate Malone straight A science and math geek, minister’s daughter, ace long distance runner, girlfriend, unwilling family caretaker, emotional avoidance champion. Suddenly, her struggle to build a better life must give way to something even more important the fight to stay alive. Then tragedy strikes the coffeehouse, and Mattie is trapped in a living nightmare. As the cemeteries fill with fever victims, fear turns to panic, and thousands flee the city. ‘Fever’ spreads from the docks and creeps toward Mattie’s home, threatening everything she holds dear. But the waterfront is abuzz with reports of disease. She wants to turn the Cook Coffeehouse into the finest business in Philadelphia, the capital of the new United States. Fourteen year old Mattie Cook is ambitious, adventurous, and sick to death of listening to her mother. Her mother repeated that over and over, ‘she sewed by candlelight after dinner.’ And then she collapsed.’ I released the handle and the bucket splashed, a distant sound. ‘And?’ I waved a mosquito away from my face.

‘Did you pass by the blacksmith’s? ‘I spoke with her mother, with Mistress Logan,’ Mother answered softly, looking at her neat rows of carrots. She Speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while demonstrating the importance of Speaking up for oneself.įrom Fever 1793 ‘Where’s Polly?’ I asked as I dropped the bucket down the well. In this powerful novel, an utterly believeable hero*ine with a bitterly ironic voice delivers a blow to the hypocritical world of high school. But this time Melinda fights back, refuses to be silent, and thereby achieves a measure of vindication. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him.

Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. As time pas*ses, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end of summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her.

The first ten lies they tell you in high school’ Speak up for yourself we want to know what you have to say.’ From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows that this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school.

Manatee Blues by Laurie Halse Anderson