This puts twisted into perspective.  It shows how cliche the book is.

Review of the book from the New York Times

Twisted review

I finished twisted a few weeks ago but never got around to posting about it.  I liked the book it was good but not as good as speak.  I think it was partly that it was from a males perspective. Tyler is a typical teenager and think that was what made me not like him.  The story itself was very atypical. The nerd goes through a dramatic transformation and the popular girl falls for him.  The book was stereotypical and not as gripping as speak.  That could be because in speak you don't know what happens to melinda until the very end.  Unlike with twisted where it is all layer out in the beginning of the book.
One thing that Anderson is very good at is the craft move of describing a character.  Such as "Mr benson, my probation officer was a big guy, ex-marine plus sixty pounds,gray in his buzz cut, thick glasses, and a smile that reminded me of a hungry possum." She is god at giving you a mental picture of what her character looks like.

Vivid Imagery in Fever 1793

In Fever 1793, Anderson uses descriptive images to describe happenings in the story. The following two quotes are my favorite from the book.

She lay under the faded bedding like a rag doll losing its stuffing, her hair a wild collection of snakes on the pillow (p. 67). This line elicits a strong image in my head, especially with the hair of snakes. The mom's body is wilting while her hair is growing a mind of its own. I know that when people are sick, their hair often times coils in stringy snakes because of not being washed or combed for several days. This reminds me of Medusa's hair.

The entire yard sparked with diamonds of frost that quickly melted into millions of drops of water with gentle kiss of the sun. - Frost. - This was no dream (p. 210). This line is written in dreamlike language. It also provides reader another perspective to looking at morning frost and dew. The next time, I look at morning dew, I'll try to have a greater appreciation for the beauty of it.

I liked how Anderson ended the book. It acknowledges the experience of the protagonist. Even though the city is back to it's healthy self and quickly forgetting that the plague ever existed, the memory of the pain and fever of that summer will always remain with Mattie. Most importantly, she'll remember the presence of deceased loved ones. I like the analogy of the sun with the giant balloon, as in the golden Blanchard hot air balloon that was often mentioned with joy and hope at the beginning of the story. 

Early morning was the only time I felt as if there were ghosts nearby, memories of the weeks of fear. ... I smiled as the mist faded. The yellow sun rose, a giant balloon filled with prayers and hopes and promise. I stood and shook idleness out of my skirts. Day was begun (p. 243). 

Fever Finale

I really enjoyed reading Fever 1793 just as much as I loved Speak. It was full of suspense, foreshadowing, metaphors, similes, and had yet another great structure. There are examples of these craft moves strewn throughout the book. Subtle foreshadowing can be seen on page 148, "A small package thumped to the floor, but I didn't bother to examine it." This package is left alone and not referred to again until page 202, "I kicked something hard and hurt my toe. What could be on the floor? I got on my hands and knees and felt along the dark floor until I found a lump wrapped in a napkin." By doing this she clues in the reader that this item is special and important. It also creates suspense in the readers mind by not attending to the package until later, making the reader question what it could be.

I had no prior knowledge of the yellow fever and found that reading this book was a great way for me to really learn about history by immersing myself in it through the eyes of a young girl. This way of learning history is also great for getting different points of view or ideas of the time that you wouldn't have normally known or thought about. One such example of this in the book is the fact that many people in Philadelphia at the time of the outbreak thought that African Americans were immune. That is until they were sent to take care of the sick and caught it themselves. Instead of out right telling you this, Anderson puts you into it by making their cook a voluntary nurse later on in the book and having her family get sick and explain the whole thing to Mathilda from the African American perspective.

After finishing Fever 1793 I went online to look for interviews about the book and found something quite different but helpful nonetheless. What I found were many short films that were either mock previews for a movie on the book or short films summarizing the book. I also found many digital stories about the yellow fever. The thing that struck me most is that most of the remakes and previews were made by and starred elementary students. To me it is pretty apparent that some teacher used this in a lesson for the book. I think this is a great idea and makes it so students could make movies or digital stories to illustrate understanding for the book and history behind it. Here is a short movie made by children of Fever 1793 that I found is a good example of how it can be done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wEtfb6_fMA&feature=related. 

And here is a shortened digital story telling about yellow fever that could easily be created just from the information gleaned out of the book by students: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFyu9Arjy-k.

Similarities between Speak and Twisted

1. Both are set in high school
2. There are clear cliques and a strong social hierarchy in place
3. Both of the stories feature violence against women. Although the act against Bethany in Twisted is not the main conflict it does move the final pieces of the climax into place.
4. One of Anderson's craft moves is to use an ongoing metaphor to show the characters growth and inner feelings. In Speak it was the art project with the trees for Melinda, and in Twisted it is the video game Tophet (Tophet is a Hebrew synonym for Hell, thank you wikipedia). The art project and the video game finish the novel to show the sense of new beginnings and choices for the characters.
5. Melinda and Tyler both try to separate themselves from what happened by giving things names like "IT" and "the foul deed." Anderson slowly reveals more information about both of these things as the book progresses to prolong the mystery.
6. Parents just don't get teens and are self-involved in Anderson's world.
7. Another craft move Anderson utilizes is short chapters and quick scene changes. She does this in Twisted the way she did in Speak to keep the story moving. In a way the short segments of story are perfectly tailored to a younger generation without a long attention span (I'll include myself in this group). I think she paces the stories in this way to create a more convincing teenage voice. I'd have to read one of her historical novels to see if she writes the same way there.

I loved Speak, but I have to admit I was not as enthusiastic about Twisted. Perhaps the male protagonist made it harder for me to relate to his story. I also felt Anderson relied too heavily on very stereotypical writing tricks in Twisted. For example the main character of course has a crush on the wealthy perfect queen bee girl in school, but she comes with the biggest bully brother. Not only was this brother a rich bully, but his name was CHIP! It felt too much like a 1980s John Hughes movie, but it was a pleasant surprise that Tyler didn't end up with Bethany and the final conflict was with his father.
Anderson does write beautifully about dealing with depression and issues as a teenager. I think her books are so popular because so many students do see themselves in her main characters.
I'm just being silly, but some of the high school antics in the book can be summed up by a Tribute to 80's bullies!

First Half of Fever

I just finished reading the first half of Fever 1793, up to chapter 17. Unlike the first book we read, Speak, the characters in Fever 1793 have more distinct personalities as manifested by their actions. In the first book, the characters may not be so distinct because their descriptions came through the one-sided perspective of Melinda, who did not bother to reveal the characters' actual names to the readers.

Some thoughts and comments I had while I was reading the first half of the book:

• Matilda's mom, Lucille, defied the rule of her upper social class status by marrying Matilda's dad, who came from a working class family. Despite what Lucille did, she does not want the same for her daughter. She hopes and pushes her daughter to marry into a wealthier family. 
• The family coffeehouse restaurant is so near to the celebrities of their time. Alexander Hamilton and Dr. Benjamin Rush both had yellow fever but recovered from it. 
• Like Leslie had mentioned, many people treated yellow fever victims like zombies. They were feared, exiled, and buried alive. It was a dark time for the city. People that remained heavily locked up their doors to keep yellow fever and looters out. Other cities did not allow people with yellow fever to even pass through. People were unsure of the cause of yellow fever but they all feared that it was contagious. 
• Grandpa does not have yellow fever but he stated that he has a heart condition? Have symptoms of his heart condition revealed themselves in the past? Will Grandpa make it all the way to the end of the story?
• I think Lucille died of yellow fever, but I hope Eliza, the coffeehouse help and cook, survives the epidemic and that she will come up again in the second half of the book. Also, I wonder if she will meet her friend and crush, Nathaniel again. 
• Due to the circumstances, Matilda will no longer act childish and soon mature and take on bigger responsibilities. She already showed this in the first half of the book by taking care of grandpa when he came under the heat. Matilda reminds me of Esperanza in the novel, Esperanza Rising; both young privileged characters mature under hardships and losses.