His delusions are, however, soon dashed and broken when Noam meets Dara, Lehrer’s adoptive son, and the fraught relationship between father and son yields the truth about Lehrer’s true intentions. Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop Noam from admiring his tutor Calix with all the greedy, worshipful need in his boyish heart. Determined to show his fellow refugees that he hasn’t deserted their side, Noam works on gathering information that could definitively condemn the government’s treatment of immigrants. But Noam is a witching now, working for the government, and that garners him the mistrust of his people. However much he had failed his parents, he could still fight for the rights of immigrants like him-those who were told their dreams didn’t match where they’d come from and would therefore never come to pass. This is Noam’s chance and he seizes it in a desperate hold. A hint of fear mingles with wonder behind Noam’s eyes when he’s brought to the witching training center and told that he would be receiving personal tutoring from Calix Lehrer, the legendary minister of defense and previously America’s briefly crowned king. Noam, the bisexual Jewish Latinx son of undocumented immigrants from Atlantia, loses his father in a virus outbreak that spares his life and gives him nothing but swirling, shapeless memories when his parents’ arms were a fortress and a haven…plus an uncanny ability to control technology. In Carolinia, those with more power than sense and more money than mercy live in regal, decadent splendor behind high walls, while refugees scavenge the smoldering waste where the plague is waiting to snatch them by the throat. The story is a thing I already faintly remember, and soon it would wither, and I’d watch my memories of it yellow and fade as everything fades in the endless wash of days. Unfortunately, my images of The Fever King are already starting to fray around the edges. As a reader, what I dread the most is the middle ground, the lukewarm, the books that lack whatever alchemy is needed to ensure they land on my heart with a sound of impact.

I relish the risk incurred by picking up a book that might inspire love or hate because both ends are passionate. My brain: *slamming fists on table* REGRET REGRET REGRET REGRET REGRET REGRET REGR Me: *picks up a book with very high expectations and ends up disappointed*

The fever king