You can be angry... Let them get big...As big as you need them to get
Very paraphrased, favorite quote.

Other amazing one is
"a universe in which every voice is a guy's voice"

Rage that simmers under the skin, that builds and is always told to be polite or quiet. This book has a swarm inside a girl. These bugs that force her to look at her emotions, this magic that breaks the walls and doesn't allow for self denial is touching in a brutal way.

I got a bit lots with the verses a bit, but the story was a touching on to me personally as well. My own swarm bussing in agreement. The feelings and bugs took me back to a vulnerable time and I am glad that I am in a good place to confront these emotions. If I had read this as a teen, I probably would have had a tsunami of emotions reading it and recommended it forever.

I don't know if it's a regional slang for ditching class, but I laughed a lot seeing 'bunked' in a book!

Um oh my god this was so good

“Every girl needs her anger.”

I think this story is truly something everyone needs to read. It was so poignant and really reflective of what growing up feels like. Also SO reflective of self harm, eating disorders and agoraphobia.

I love Nell and k love Shay and omg this seriously could be a movie or a short film. This was truly phenomenal.

I Am the Swarm is a magical realism YA fantasy written in a kind of verse stream of consciousness. This story is a poignant coming of age story for Nell Strand, a daughter of a family of women who all get a magical gift when they turn 15. This book explores heavy themes of familial trauma, CSA trauma, and generational trauma. While heavy, this book was a beautiful picture of resilience in the face of hardship and I loved the character arc of Nell as she went from emotional numbness to welcoming her emotions for the myriad of ways our feelings protect, guide and communicate with us.

I would like to thank Penguin Group and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was very well written. I loved the imagery and prose. Nell was definitely dealing with some mental health issues s well as her sister. Her mother also suffered from mental health which made Nell’s life difficult to traverse.

This story was a little rough for me to read.

I want to thank NetGalley and Penguin You g Readers Group for the advanced reader copy and this is my honest review of this work.

Thank you to Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group | Viking Books for Young Readers for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I normally do not read "magic" book. I did enjoy this one. I would recommend this book.

I ended up DNFing this title around 50%.

It is a super short story so I could have pushed myself through, but I just didn't want to. Why does Mr. ________ have no name? I didn't realize how much the pedophile sexual harassment would affect me and I decided it was time to be done.

I know this is supposed to be a book that is marketed to teens. I would highly suggest a parent review this before choosing to let their kids read it.

Since I couldn't finish, I will not be reviewing this title on instagram. I do not believe that is fair. I was not the right reader for this, but others will be.

I AM THE SWARM is a story full of beautiful verse, visuals, and emotions. However, the balance of flowery language and strong sense of plot is missing the mark here, with the story seeming to flutter around without much direction.

This story was heartbreakingly beautiful, dark and filled with so many raw emotions. I adore poetry but don't often find myself reading novels in-verse but I'm so incredibly glad that I read this one. This story revolves around a teen girl dealing with heavy topics like mental health issues, self-harm, sexual abuse, and parental neglect...and dealing with all of the emotions that go along with that. It's an allegory of mental health issues hidden behind magical realism and I loved the way the author executed it.

It's a story of Nell Strand who, like every woman in her family at 15, gets some kind of magic. Ouma (her grandmother) feels everything and anything that goes on within the building she's in, so she sticks to smaller locations and mostly stays home. Mamma's age changes every day, sometimes she's 15 (the age she first got her magic) and sometimes she's 42 (her actual age), but too often she's 15. Mora (Nell's older sister) has music in her blood and harms herself to let it out. Then there's Nell, who conjures up insects that are connected to her emotions (black beetles for shame, wasps for anger, dragonflies for hope, etc.) Nell struggles with her emotions throughout the story, wanting to suppress them, preferring to be numb rather than let the wasps out.

In a young adult magical realism told in poetry, as our female protagonist turns 15, it is time to get her magic. An intense and emotional telling, the magic of 15 felt like a coming of age magic. That 15 was the main character hitting puberty or something similar, representing her change growing into something older.

A lot of descriptions will be related to music and as the author is a songwriter herself, I enjoyed those details as it felt as part of the author. Like tapping into her strengths. The poetry gives lots of depth and references to the traumas at times for being a teenage girl. Including her sister’s mental health and the obvious fear her mother has of aging. I loved how the mother’s age seemed to reflect an accurate age when she was actually acting and wanting to be a mom.

Lots of magical realism, like the insects representing her emotions. But the idea of the women being magical, having gifts, is very light. So take the concept of magic very subtly and look more at the poetry being emotional and tense teenage coming of age. And please check trigger warnings. The ending does feel mostly open which is likely the point. That your family trauma cannot be solved over night. Every day is just existing in it.

love the symbolisms, but wished we were given more background story of the characters. thank you for the publisher for providing me with this arc.

This is a beautifully dark and emotional YA novel written in verse enriched with magical realism. It’s a story of growing up while dealing with mental health issues, sexual abuse, self-harm, parental neglect.

Nell comes from a family where at 15 women get magical powers. But all of their powers seem more like a curse than a blessing. Nell’s powers manifest through insects which are connected to her emotional state. Her sister Mora literally bleeds music while struggling with suicidal tendencies and self harm. Her mother’s age changes every day, making her a neglectful parent because for most of the story she is a teenager or young adult. This is not just a story about Nell, this Is a story about all the women in the Strand family.

Throughout the story Nell struggles with expressing herself, she’s trying to suppress her emotions, hide them from everyone around her including her family. But as we go along, we see how much she wants to the able to release it all - the love, the fear, and especially the rage she feels.

I haven’t read a book written in verse since I left school and I’ll be honest it was a bit hard for me to get into, but once I hit about 40%, I couldn’t put it down. Nell’s emotions completely consumed me and it felt like I lived through it all with her.

This story was so raw and so powerful, I can’t wait to read more of the author’s work.

Thank you NetGalley and Viking books for a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was excruciating.

The concept sounded cool, but the execution left a lot to be desired. I've been reading a lot of novels in verse lately, and I like the form when it's done well. This book read
like the author
had written prose
sentences and then
just
hit
space
at random and to little effect.
Also,
Repeating the same line twice in a row does not make it deeper.
Repeating. The same line. Twice. In a row. Does not make it deeper.

IMO, a lot of this was lazy writing. Sometimes I would reread a scene two or three times and still not know what happened. I found it hard to picture a lot of the magic, and there was almost no sensory description to be found in these pages. The ending didn't feel earned, either, in part because there were so many things that weren't described clearly. As far as the plot, the sparse and inelegant language made it feel like this was a cliffnotes version of the story, so there was little to distinguish the characters from basic tropes.

Obviously this one wasn't for me. I do love some good feminist rage, but this one didn't work for me at all. Shoutout to the one really good line, though, about the types of guys who think all the voices they hear should be men's voices. Very true.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I really liked this book. The characters were inspiring and is was an easy and very plesant read. My 12 year old daughter i believe would also really like this book.

I was first interested in this book because the summary reminded me of a Katrina Leno book that I love. The idea of a family with magic that also represents trauma and personalities. However, I feel like this book being written in verse didn’t helped the story. It was harder to connect with the characters and their struggles because it read superficial.

It was okay. It wasn’t my favorite but don’t mean other people won’t enjoy it. I hope all the success of this author. And best wishes

Wow. What a powerful novel in verse. If you've ever tried to stay safe by ignoring your feelings and making yourself small, I have a feeling you'll find yourself connecting with this story. With magical realism and wrestling with real trauma, this novel deeply connected with my heart and treated the sensitive topics carefully (thanks to the author for the trigger warnings at the beginning of the book.) This wasn't necessarily a feel-good story, but it was a real one and I'm grateful to have gotten to read it.

This was incredible. Examining the emotions of a teen girl and how they are represented by the magic of her family, this was a terrifying and exciting tale.

I really wanted to like this book better than I did. I absolutely love the premise, and I am always looking fro YA books in verse. However, how it was written and/or formatted it was hard to sometimes understand what was happening, especially when it came to the dialogue. I think the topics covered are extremely important and there were moments of beautiful poignancy, but I kept being pulled out of the story due to having to reread several sections in order to understand what was happening.

I am the Swarm was absolutely fantastic! The author wrote a story that was so well written I found myself flying through the pages, unable to put the book down, pondering what would happen next. My favorite piece of this entire story was how believable the characters were.

The writing is clear and clean, and very immersive. The book hums along at a good clip, but the pacing makes sure we're given time to breathe between plot-intensifying moments. The story was absolutely engaging and the work that went into the settings was noticeable and superb. I felt absolutely transported and I'm so incredibly glad I was able to read an arc of this story.

First of all, I absolutely loved this book. It is a great book to showcase mental health and mental health awareness. Though it is dark in nature, it is a really moving and compelling novel.