Member Review

American Fever is an excellent novel. It surprised me, resonated and has stayed with me months after reading it.

Hira is itchy to leave home, to experience a very different life, to be free from the routine of her day to day. She ends up in Oregon, in a very different world, sick and lonely. She has come a long way from her home, yet carried it with her. It's about culture and identity, including the things that are so much a part of you that you don't even see them as 'different'. About our sifferences and commonalities.

Hira is a wonderful character. She is incredibly relatable even though I have absolutely nothing in common with her other than, well, I'm also human, and female. She's a Pakistani teenager on an exchange program to Oregon - I'm a middle-aged European. Yet I felt so close to her while reading, so in tune with what she was feeling... It's a skilled author who can enable you to empathise with a character to such an extent.

The book is beautifully written, lyrical and funny. it's extremely easy to read and ends on quite a simple message: wherever you go, there you are.

Highly recommended, for any reader.