There has been a huge amount of hype surrounding Fever Dream and it has been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.
So, is it worthy of the hype and inclusion on the list?
It is the story of Amanda, who lies unconscious in a hospital bed with a young boy, David, sat next to her. David whispers in her ear urging to recount the events leading up to her present state. We hear of her holiday with daughter NIna and her befriending of local resident Carla. Carla's son David was poisoned and after a visit to a psychic is an unknown entity, not the child Carla gave birth to..
Events slowly build and culminate in a visit to Carla's workplace where both Amanda and Nina are poisoned.
Schweblin is not just telling us the story of Amanda, Nina, Carla and David but of the neglect practised by industry in her home country, of the pursuit of money over the welfare of the environment and those that live there.
It is a mesmirsing story, told in a totally unique and clever way that I absolutely loved.

'Fever Dream' is an almost impososible book to rate and/or review. Reading it has the feel of a fever dream almost as the story does; in some ways it is a difficult read, in others not. So I'll focus on the few certainties there are: it has an unconventional structure which is executed cleverly and effectively. It is worth a read, probably a reread - heck, perhaps several reads - to tease out its nuances and work out its intentions. I would recommend it, even though I don't much know what to say about it! It's one of those books that has to be read because it defies explanation. Fever Dream' made a lasting impression, for sure, which is one of the best indicators of a book that's above usual fare. Give it a go and let's see if we can manage a conversation about it...

Possibly the most appropriate title for a book ever! Reading this feels like you are in a fever dream. It's relentless and ominous and there is no escape from the horror you know is to come, you just don't know when. The narrative has no chapters and no real structure. It consists of a conversation(?) between Amanda and David. We don't really know who either of these people are, only that they are connected in some way. The conversation proceeds with no let up through to its conclusion, as does the reader. The book is short and the way it is written makes it very easy to read in one sitting. I think it's probably best read like that. I still don't know 100% what was going on in this small country town, but I do know that this is a great read and I would recommend it to anyone who has a liking for David Lynch films - it definitely has a similar sensibility.

Subtle, yet haunting, this beautifully written and powerful tale will stay with you for a long time.

That was weirdly fascinating. Absolutely worth a read. But confusing, very much so. But in a good way.

My thoughts are all over the place for this one. While I really enjoyed reading this book, it still left me feeling fairly confused during and afterwards. Usually I try to write my reviews as quickly as possible after finishing a book but this time I couldn't have done that because I seriously needed some time to gather my thoughts.

This is one of those books that isn't really "about" anything. I mean, yes, on the surface it is about a woman in a hospital talking to a boy that isn't hers about what has happened to her and her daughter. But that isn't really it, this is just the first layer of meaning you can unpack from this short but impactful book. It is about a mother's fear, about voodoo, about trust, about losing everything, about fever dreams, and other dreams, about nothing at all. The book is structured as a dialogue between Amanda and the boy and as such it is wonderfully circular and weird and just like a conversation one might have (minus the worms). 

This is a book that practically begs a reread, there is so much to unpack, so much to understand and this understanding didn't happen for me the first time around. I mean this in the best way possible. I love how highly metaphorical this weird little book is and I think there just is something really special about the whole experience. I definitely understand why it is longlisted for the Man Booker International and I am excited to see more people reading this as a result. It is absolutely worth it - if you're okay with weirdness and thing being just beyond the grasp of reason.

____
I received an arc of this book curtesy of NetGalley and Oneworld Publications in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for that!

This was a very short novel, translated from Spanish. The author is an award winning Argentinian born writer.   The narrative is the apparent ramblings of a woman on her death-bed, talking to a young boy who is probably not there.   His minimal responses are shown in italics  to indicate who is talking.    I found this story difficult but compelling and had to do a lot of gap-filling to decide what exactly had happened in the story.   The narrator, Amanda, has been in a holiday home with her young daughter Nina and finds herself in hospital suffering perhaps from sunstroke, perhaps from poisoning; Nina may or may not have died or may or may not have been switched with David so that they may both continue to live, or perhaps Carla has stolen Nina to replace David - confused? Yes, so was this reader.   I may return and re-read this novel to make more sense of it; I may try to read in the original Spanish - until I do one of these things I will not be recommending this book as I could not say in all honesty what I liked about it.   However I could see this as a very effective art-house film.

This is a very hard story to review. It's unlike anything I have ever read before.

This won't be for everyone, it's very unusual. I read the whole thing in one sitting. I had to find out what was happening and the structure of the book worked for me. I enjoyed the dialogue between Amanda and David, it creates such a tense atmosphere. 

It's quite heartbreaking and a little disturbing. It's a short read so if you can I would recommend taking the time to just sit and let the story soak in without a break.
One point knocked off for the ending, I just kinda felt like "wtf", though I imagine that's what the author wanted.

Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, ‘Fever Dream’ by Samanta Schweblin tells the story of Amanda, a woman who is critically ill in a rural Argentinian hospital, where David is trying to get her to remember the events which led her there. She recalls encounters with her daughter Nina and David’s mother Carla who once told her how David’s soul was split in two in order to save him after he was poisoned. However, David is not quite the same afterwards, and neither are Amanda and Nina.

‘Fever Dream’ is very short and can easily be read in under two hours which is just as well because, unusually for me, I have had to read it twice in order to review it. I don’t think I absorbed it properly the first time round but then I’m still not entirely sure I did the second time either. The structure broadly consists of two overlapping conversations – one in the present between Amanda and David as he urges her to remember specific events, and one in the past as Amanda recalls what happened to her, Carla and Nina. David repeatedly tells Amanda to stop dwelling on what he believes are irrelevant details which increases the sense of urgency and dread. However, Amanda’s deteriorating health and confused memories (if that is indeed what they are) leaves almost everything open to interpretation.

If my description of ‘Fever Dream’ so far sounds a bit weird and incoherent, that’s because it is a pretty weird and incoherent book. While there is an underlying menace throughout, the story is never quite what it seems and as the different strands overlap, the narrative becomes increasingly shapeless with recurring images resembling an inescapable nightmare, which eventually offers some possible clues as to what caused the poisoning. One of the most compelling images Amanda repeatedly refers to is the “rescue distance” between her and Nina by which she means the distance from which a mother can pull her child back to safety away from a dangerous situation. Although ‘Fever Dream’ is difficult to categorise thematically with so little certainty in terms of what is real and what isn’t, paranoia is undoubtedly a key element and Schweblin portrays this motif of all-consuming maternal love very effectively.

Disorientating and profoundly unsettling, ‘Fever Dream’ probably isn’t for everyone but for true originality alone, it really ought to be a contender for the upcoming Man Booker International Prize longlist which I will be shadowing again this year. Many thanks to Oneworld Publications for sending me a review copy via NetGalley.

I received a free copy of Fever Dream from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
This is a stunning piece of writing, incredibly haunting, reflecting its title through its feverish, almost hallucinogenic prose. It is mesmerising and disturbing whilst being quite beautiful as it articulates the mother/child bond and the aching chasm of loss in a poisoned landscape. It is a short novel – I finished it in no time at all – but it packs a punch. The reader’s sense of confusion at the beginning perfectly mirrors the confusion of Amanda, who is dying in a hospital bed and being kept company by a young boy, David, who is trying to get her to understand what has and is happening. It is filled with desperate suspense and all-encompassing maternal love. There is no solid explanation of what has happened at the end of the novel; you may end up nearly as uncertain as you were at the beginning but this is nevertheless a superb book.

Amanda is in her deathbed. Next to her is David, a child who is not hers. Together, they try to understand how they came to be there.

Fever Dream is a short novel of impeccable pacing that intrigues you from the very beginning. An eerie and highly original piece with a subtle but effective ending.

Very much recommended.

(Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy!)

Fever Dream is a difficult book to review. I found it strange but so compelling I had to read it through to see where it would lead. Odd, it most certainly is, and disturbing too. Disturbing in a subtle, taunt way that is well crafted. It casts a spell that is both unusual and troubling. 

I cannot honestly say that I liked Fever Dream but it is a book that has stayed with me and revealed its secrets with time and reflection. I'm glad I read it but, as I said before, it is something that leaves a mark on the reader and makes the reader feel unsettled.

This is a weird story, so weird that I struggle to know what it is about. However it is nicely written and translated and despite never knowing quite is going on, it does manage to sustain a tension to keep the reader engaged until the end. Possibly a good one for book clubs as it is so open to interpretation.

Unfortunately this book was not for me but thanks a million for allowing me to read it

Do you ever read two (or more) completely unrelated books that seem – somehow – spiritually identical? This has happened to me recently with Iain Reid's I'm Thinking of Ending Things and Samanta Schweblin's Fever Dream. Both Ending Things and Fever Dream are very short novellas that can easily be read in their entirety in an hour or two. They share a sense of shifting nightmare logic and a horrible compulsive darkness that makes you burn through the pages in search of an answer. Both feel predominantly like horror stories despite the absence of many of the genre's typical hallmarks and the fact that they are not packaged as horror. 

Fever Dream opens with a disorientating conversation; I had to read the first page several times. Eventually it becomes apparent that the narrator, Amanda, is lying in a hospital bed and answering the questions put to her, with some urgency, by a boy named David. She is telling a story, or rather recounting things that have happened to her, while David is trying to identify 'the important thing', 'the exact moment when the worms come into being'. What worms? Well, exactly. It doesn't seem likely they are actual worms, but in this aptly-named novella you can never be sure. 

A narrative emerges, taking place just a few days earlier. Amanda and her young daughter, Nina, meet David and his mother, Carla, while on holiday. Carla claims there is something wrong with David, and then she, in turn, tells Amanda a story. When David was three, he was poisoned after drinking contaminated water from a stream. Carla took him to 'the green house', where a local woman performed a 'migration': sending David's soul into another's body so he could continue to live. Since then, his body has been inhabited by the spirit of another. So Carla says. What happens to Amanda and Nina after this is what leads to Amanda's hospitalisation and David's demand that they pinpoint 'the exact moment', 'before time runs out'. Though some aspects of the story seem meaningful to Amanda, David dispassionately skips over anything he deems unimportant. Some details are recurring motifs: Carla's gold bikini, Nina's cuddly toy mole. Then there's the matter of the 'rescue distance', Amanda's obsessive idea of how far she can safely be from her daughter in case of an emergency.

It's quite a strange thing to read a story where you fear the ending but feel a desperate need to get to it. Fever Dream made me feel sick, but I can't tell you why. It really is like a nonsensical dream from which you wake with a great sense of dread, as though you've had a terrible nightmare, even though the details weren't particularly horrifying in themselves. I'm really not sure I understood it, and reading other reviews, including those from professional critics, I'm not convinced many other people did either. It teases some dreadful shock but never shows its hand. In the end, that lack of an answer, the fruitless search for understanding, is the real horror.

A mother's love is an area that has been often explored in fiction. Here, author Samantha Schweblin who was born in Buenos Aires dives straight into a very surreal and challenging plot that focuses on transference of motherly love. However it is not transferring love from one child to another but for another child to possess the human form of your own child.  There is a small group of central characters keeping the plot focused, with the voice of David as the child leading mother figure Amanda through a growing sense of suspicion and fear.  Taut writing and some disturbing effects of the transfiguration don't make for an easy read. It is probably not a book I would have chosen and I am often wary of translated fiction. But "Fever Dream" confounds both my pre- conceptions and I look forward to further works from this talented writer.

The best word I can come up with to describe this book is weird. I'm very confused by it and not convinced I'll ever understand what I just read. 

I feel that nothing was explained at all and I have no idea at all why anything happened, I'm not 100% on what actually happened. It's really unusual and I was confused throughout but I was intrigued enough to finish.

I understand how other readers could absolutely love this, but it was just a bit too odd for me.

Samanta Schweblin has been heralded as one of the freshest new voices to emerge from the Spanish-speaking world.  An Argentinian author, her debut novel, <i>Fever Dream</i>, is one which I hadn't heard of before it piqued my interest on Netgalley.  Translated by Megan McDowell, <i>Fever Dream</i> is a tense and well-paced novel, with an intriguing mystery at its heart.

The general plot deals with a young mother named Amanda, who is lying in bed in a rural hospital clinic.  She is dying.  Beside her is David, a young boy who isn't her son, but who sees her as holding the pivotal key to the mystery which he needs to unlock.  'Together,' reads the blurb, 'they tell a haunting story of broken souls, toxins, and the power and desperation of family'.  <i>Fever Dream</i> is 'a nightmare come to life, a ghost story for the real world, a love story and a cautionary tale'.

David is poisoned when he drinks from an infected stream.  His mother Carla, not trusting that the village doctor will reach him in time to save him, entrusts his care to a local woman. She tells her that a migration of his soul is the only way to save her son: 'The woman said that she couldn't choose the family he went to...  She wouldn't know where he'd gone.  She also said the migration would have its consequences.  There isn't room in a body for two spirits, and there's no body without a spirit.  The transmigration would take David's spirit to a healthy body, but it would also bring an unknown spirit to the sick body.  Something of each of them would be left in the other'.

The narrative style, told solely through the format of a contemporary conversation (think italicised text and no speech marks) is very intriguing, and catapults the reader straight into the story.  Very early on, Amanda tells David - and the reader, by design - '... but I'm going to die in a few hours.  That's going to happen, isn't it?  It's strange how calm I am.  Because even though you haven't told me, I know.  And still, it's an impossible thing to tell yourself'.  She goes on to ask him the following: 'How different are you now from the David of six years ago?  What did you do that was so terrible your own mother no longer accepts you as hers?  These are the things I can't stop wondering about'.

Crossing genre boundaries, <i>Fever Dream</i> is a short but memorable novel.  It strikes the same unsettling chord as a horror film, just before something jumps out and terrifies you.  One is palpably aware of a danger, which has been translated so well that it reads as though English is its original language.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

What an odd little book.

I dont get it. I wish i did, but i missed something. Maybe thats the point. Aaaarggghh. 

A delirious woman on her death bed tells the story of how she got there to a mysterious man sitting beside her, whilst all the while he pushes and prods her along, telling her which bits are important to the story and which arent. The womans daughter is missing, she wants to know where she is. All this is told as one big fever dream. The narrative is a real slog to get into at first. For the first 20 pages or so i had no fucking clue what was going on, then once i got to grips with it i went back and restarted. It made more sense, but, still, no fucking clue. 

The novel has a realm of the supernatural about it. I thought i knew where it was headed and i was kind of right. I think. 

Anyway these fever dreams throughout, and the womans story are building to something. There is a chilling vibe all the way through. It builds and builds and i couldnt stop reading until i knew what had happened. 

I still dont, but hey ho, a headfuck in the best possible way. I think. 

Thanks to netgalley for an advanced copy

Maybe I am missing something but I thought this story was horribly disjointed and overall messy writing. There is a point reached when a story is overwhelmingly vague and this story has reached that point.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this title. My review is now live on my blog and Goodreads and I will shortly be linking to it on social media. Here is the full transcript:

Fever Dream was a fascinating read. It took me a few pages to get into the narrative style (which alternates a dream/fevered conversation with memories of past events), but once I adjusted to it, I stopped noticing the jumps. This is not a traditional narrative, where the point of the story is clear, but if you enjoy immersing yourself in dream-like, stream-of-consciousness tales that are more psychological, this could well be the book for you. As a novella, I read it in a single sitting, and it certainly left me with plenty to think about after I closed the final page.