Reviews with content warning for Miscarriage - The Fervor

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The Fervor by Alma Katsu

16 reviews

alicelalicon's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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kt2e56's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This started out great but sort of petered out as it went on. I think once the characters’ stories begin to intersect is where the trouble begins. Things start to become a bit too convenient and eventually lead to a really rushed ending that feels a bit like a deus ex machina. I also feel like as the story goes on, the Japanese folklore (aka the most interesting bits) sort of becomes less and less important and the book goes from being a creepy historical horror novel to a quasi-political thriller which just wasn’t what I was in the mood for. Don’t get me wrong, this was still entertaining but it just wasn’t as spooky as The Hunger so I feel a bit disappointed.

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courtney_g's review

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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sidneyreads_'s review

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

felt like there was a bit of heavy handed copaganda toward the very end but otherwise a spooky and adventurous historical horror!

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ten_telegrams's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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archaicrobin's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This is my first book by Alma Katsu, and while I felt The Fervor was a bit repetitive and dragged on at times, I still enjoyed what the author was trying to accomplish. Meiko and her daughter Aiko are being held at a Japanese internment camp in Minidoka Idaho while her husband is off fighting the war as a pilot. Things are horrific at the camp but everyone there does their best to be what they call “good Japanese” in hopes of laying low and being spared the cruelty that the racist white peoples are capable of.

Despite being amicable, Meiko and Aiko are soon torn apart as a strange illness rampages through the camp, and it is soon revealed that this outbreak is not an accident. Katsu does an excellent job of tying in history and fantasy, while still managing to comment on the dangers of nationalism and white supremacy. It’s devastating to see what Meiko and Aiko are forced to deal with simply because they are Japanese, and even more devastating to know that this kind of racism is still around. That people today are following disgusting rhetoric like this in todays age. If you don’t understand why terms like “kung fu flu” and other derogatory terms for Covid spread by the disease that is Trump are problematic and disgusting, then pick up this book and you’ll see why.

While I do wish this was more supernatural and had more Yokai or Japanese lore, I do love that Katsu wrote a book that’s not only historical, but interesting, and provides a marginalized perspective.

I look forward to reading more by Alma Katsu in the future

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ericarobyn's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

The Fervor by Alma Katsu is a gut-wrenching tale of violence, hatred, propaganda, and sickness. Set in the 1940s during the war in which darkness surrounds, there are also strong elements of love and bravery with the characters that we follow.

Content warnings:
Forced confinement, hate crimes, and miscarriage.

Set as a tale that jumps between various characters, readers get to see the different perspectives and feelings about the state of the world from the main characters.

First, we have a woman and her daughter who are stuck in an internment camp that are terrified when a sickness begins to spread.
Next we have a man angry at the world after the loss of his wife after finding something in the woods.
Then we have a reporter who has picked up on a story that she can’t just let go.
In addition to these characters, we also get snippets of journal entries throughout.

Each individual storyline was intense in its own way and each flowed perfectly into the overall story-arc. I loved that each section slowly began to give us more information so we could start putting the puzzle pieces together.

Even with all the hard emotions that came up by reading this, I just couldn’t put the book down. I needed to see what was going to happen with each of the primary characters!

I don’t want to go too far into the plot, as this is a book that I think readers need to just dive into. But I will note that had no idea there were internment camps that forced Japanese Americans into them during the war. Over 120,000 people of Japanese heritage were relocated to the camps in the 1940s.

I love historical horror for exactly this reason, it shines a light on true, very real horror. It gets readers to learn more than what history lessons in school glosses over, and opens up the avenue to learn more. I certainly have a lot to learn about this, and I’m so grateful Alma Katsu opened that door for me.

The Afterword is also not to be missed.

My Favorite Passages from The Fervor

Rumors flow like wasps through the camp, each story more outrageous than the last. It was impossible to know what was true with all the lies, many of them coming from the guards.

Could it have been a ghost? The thought popped into her head, unwelcome. She didn’t believe in ghosts, not while the sun shined, but it was hard to feel as certain at night.

There were always inner demons to be fought.

My Final Thoughts on The Fervor

Within these pages, there are so many elements that will make your skin crawl and your blood boil. The heartbreak you will feel while reading this is definitely worth the experience. It’s an especially important considering the rising tension in the US yet again recently.

Stay safe. If you’re having a hard time with the current news cycle, you’ll want to tread lightly here. But please do give this one a read when you can!

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honeyvee's review

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adventurous dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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xlizabeth's review

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challenging dark sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

“The Fervor” was a solid 4.5 for me, and I’ll be adding the rest of Alma Katsu’s historical horror to my TBR.

I’d recommend this to historical fiction fans wanting to dip their toes into horror, or horror fans not wanting blood & guts horror.

It takes the approach that King’s “The Stand” does (multiple POVs that come together at the end — not a huge spoiler, its obvious that they will).

We follow a preacher (in Oregon dealing with loss), a reporter (crossing the country dealing with misogyny), and a mother and child (who are in a Japanese internment camp located in Idaho dealing with abuse). I was thrown off by these multiple storylines for a bit since I had surgery in the middle but I think this would be a 4.75 star read if I wasn’t rudely interrupted by my emergency appendectomy.

This is a social commentary horror story which is my favorite type of horror to read. Anti-Asian rhetoric is the true horror but Alma Katsu has added Japanese Yōkai (supernatural spirits) to elevate the storytelling. Be warned, if you’re scared of spiders I’d stay away from this one.

Written during a time when both white nationalism and a deadly virus are spreading, this is a truly terrifying read.

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captainroz's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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