My Thoughts:
May contain spoilers
I love me my apocalypse books, and Swarm was no exception. This book was unique and was surprisingly fun. I honestly wasn’t expecting much from it, but man-eating butterflies is a new twist for me, so I grabbed a copy from the library.
This starts with a bang, as all YA horror-end-of-the-world stories should, quickly introducing us to the terror of enormous butterflies appearing all over the earth. Our heroine, Shur, already suffers from crippling anxiety, so when the scope of the emergency slowly crystallizes, she feels ill equipped to handle it.
I liked all of the characters trapped with Shur and her twin brother, Keene. Prisoners in their home without an adult to guide them through the disaster, the gang does the best they can to stay alive. Shur and Keene have a four year old brother, their father died tragically in an accident, and their mother is trapped at work. All the makings for a fun, insect laden thriller.
Keeping everyone safe requires quick thinking from Shur, who is used to handling anxiety. Using all of her therapy responses, as well as the aid of her medication, she goes into overdrive, analyzing every possible awful thing that could happen to her new family of her brothers and their school friends.
I really enjoyed this. I could really relate to Shur, the butterflies and the parasite infected people trying to breach the walls of the house and kill them amped up the suspense, and holy hell, I polished this off in two sittings.
Rating: 5 Stars
From the back of the book:
On a sunny September morning, the creatures first appear. Shur sees one of them hovering outside the window in history class: it looks like a giant butterfly, at first too beautiful and strange to seem like a threat. But when emergency alerts light up everyone’s phones around her, she realizes something very, very wrong is happening outside. These… things are everywhere.
By the time Shur makes it back to her house with her brother, Keene, and their two best friends, it’s clear they must face whatever comes next on their own. A terrifying species the world’s never seen before has suddenly emerged, and few living things are safe. As the creatures swarm and attack outside, life for Shur and her friends becomes a survival game. They board the windows, stockpile supplies, and try to make sense of the news reports for as long as the power stays on.
Yet nothing can prepare them for what follows. The butterflies are only the beginning. The next onslaught will be deadlier, and even closer to home.
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