The cover was what immediantly pulled me in. On the front, a single word, "Deadly," jumps at you. Next to it, the chilling sentence, "How do you catch an invisible killer?" When I saw that cover, I knew that I would not be able to resist reading this book.
"Deadly" may sound like a vampire book, the kind of thing you shouldn't read before bed, but in reality it is a historical fiction novel, specifically about the discovery of Mary Mallon (Typhoid Mary). Written in diary form and narrarated by sixteen-year-old Prudence Gawelski, this book perfectly combines science and story. This is a good book to read if you'd like to learn something, but want to get a good novel out of it too.
Prudence Gawelski is a budding young scientist/doctor in a time (1906-1907) when women definitely didn't pursue that kind of profession. She works as an assistant in a labratory attempting to discover more about Typhoid Mary and how she is able to carry Typhoid and spread it, but not catch it herself. However, amidst stories about research and encounters with Mary Mallon herself, the author, Julie Chibbaro, still manages to squeeze in a crush on the main research official and trials having to do with Prudence's father's missing in action status.
I thought that this was an amazing book. It was artfully informational while still providing a story. I thought I knew at least a little about Typhoid Mary, but this book showed me how wrong I was. I would recommend it to readers above ten, because some of the scientific happenings in the book might be confusing to young readers. Once again, I loved this book, and I hope you do too!
