I Am the Swarm

Starred review from December 2, 2024
Three days after her 15th birthday, Nell Strand manifests her matrilineal magic in the form of yellow ladybugs that alight on her piano keys as she searches for the perfect melody. But Nell’s joy is immediately undercut by her acute awareness of the dangers of her bloodline’s abilities. Her older sister Mora was recently institutionalized because she utilizes self-harm methods to release the music in her blood, and her mother’s appearance vacillates between ages based on her mood—she often looks and acts more like an antagonistic sibling than a parent. In dealing with the stress of her family dynamic as well as unwanted, escalating sexual attention from her piano teacher, Nell learns that she manifests other creatures as well: stick insects for sadness, beetles for shame, and wasps for anger. As Nell develops increasingly maladaptive coping mechanisms, she finds that her emotions are not so easily suppressed. In this deeply felt verse novel, Chewins (The Sisters of Straygarden Place) expertly leverages evocative language and extended poetry metaphors for a moving tale of self-discovery and healing through connection. The novel takes place in Cape Town; Nell is half Afrikaner and half English. Ages 14–up.

Starred review from January 15, 2025
The arrival of magic forces a Cape Town girl to examine how she faces--and avoids--her intense feelings. Nell Strand knew that the magic would come for her at 15, just as it had for all the women in her family before her. It arrives differently for each one: Her sister, Mora, has music in her blood; her mother's age changes from one day to the next. Nell wields numbness as a shield against her sister's mental illness, her English father's neglect, and her Afrikaner mother's unpredictability. Her own magic manifests as insects that represent the feelings she so carefully represses. Their arrival starts off harmlessly enough--joyful ladybugs when she plays the piano, black butterflies when she kisses the brown-skinned boy she calls "the antidote." But when her lecherous music teacher stands too close, beetles appear. Gray moths flock when hopelessness sets in--and wasps swarm whenever her rage surfaces. Nell must decide how far she will go to hide from her emotions and whether she can be brave enough to face them. The novel is written in delicate, sparse, almost fragile verse that's also richly literary. Chewins examines each of Nell's emotions as if it's a butterfly preserved in amber, held up to the light for careful study. The elements of magic interwoven with the very real cruelties of girlhood is a case study in successful fabulism A beautiful, introspective slow burn of a book. (content warning)(Verse fiction. 14-18)

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Starred review from February 1, 2025
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Strand women always get their magic at age 15. Nell's sister Mora's gift is that she bleeds music, and her increasing desperation for release has landed her in the hospital after a near-death experience. Their mother's magic is her age constantly shifting, and her resulting unpredictability and unreliability keep her from being able to provide any real support for her daughters. When Nell's own magic appears, it manifests as swarms of insects that betray her feelings: ladybugs when she plays piano, beetles when she's afraid, stick insects when she's sad. But worst of all are the wasps that come when she's angry; they're dangerous and revealing too much of her truth. If she can wrap her anger up tightly enough and smother it with other feelings, she can keep the wasps at bay. But as the effects of her family's instability combine with the trauma of continued abuse from a trusted adult, all the black butterflies of Nell's sexuality won't stop the wasps from swarming. In verse that flies across the page, Chewins weaves multiple apt metaphors with sensory detail, exploring the generational compounding of mental health struggles for a girl dealing with ongoing assault. An infusion of Nell's mother's native Afrikaans accompanies themes of music as a powerful tool for self-expression and anger as an important self-protective measure in this one-sitting read.

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