Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I find myself still thinking about this book or referencing it to people, so I guess that means I liked it?

While I don't completely understand the ending, which aggravates me to no end, the storyline was interesting and the writing style was incredibly unique (and also strange and hard to follow at times being one constant and fluid conversation between the ONLY two characters in present time). The overall theme was also surprisingly deep. Who would have thought this tiny novel (literally - the book itself was so small I felt as though I had the hands of some giant woman) was actually a huge political commentary piece on a current health crisis going on in Argentina? Had the blurb on the front cover told me that, I would have promptly returned it to the shelf at the library. And I would have missed out on one of the more intriguing and thought provoking books I have read in a long time. Great job Mr. or Mrs. (or Miss - I assume nothing!) Blurb writer, you convinced me this was nothing more than a trippy mind fu*k meant to confuse the hell out of me.

After finishing this novel, I felt motivated to open myself up to more English translated works of literature, and to stray away from the overdone storylines I can predict from page one. I was going to be a new, almost respectable, fan of the written word. No longer needing to feel low key ashamed of the unreliable female lead domestic psychological thriller genre I gravitate towards 95% of the time. I was going to become cultured.... That was a pretty neat 5 minutes.



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