Hayley Chewins returns with her third novel, I Am the Swarm, delivering a powerhouse exploration of trauma, family dysfunction, and the raw, untamed nature of teenage girlhood. Following her critically acclaimed The Turnaway Girls and The Sisters of Straygarden Place, Chewins demonstrates remarkable growth as a storyteller, crafting a narrative that pulses with the same intensity as her protagonist’s magical manifestations.
Set against the backdrop of Cape Town’s windswept landscapes, this novel-in-verse follows fifteen-year-old Nell Strand as she navigates the treacherous waters of inherited magic, family secrets, and sexual awakening. Where Chewins’ previous works explored themes of identity and belonging through gentler magical realism, I Am the Swarm plunges readers into darker territory, examining how trauma manifests in our bodies and relationships with unflinching honesty.
The Strand Family Curse: Magic as Metaphor
The magic system Chewins creates serves as a brilliant metaphor for the ways women’s emotions are both pathologized and weaponized. Each Strand woman’s magic reflects their deepest struggles: Nell’s mother Odette ages unpredictably, sometimes becoming younger than her daughters when overwhelmed by responsibility. Nell’s sister Mora bleeds music—literally—requiring self-harm to release the orchestras trapped beneath her skin. Ouma, the grandmother, absorbs entire buildings into her consciousness, feeling every footstep and slamming door.
Nell’s own magic begins beautifully with ladybugs dancing across piano keys, representing her creative joy. But darkness follows swiftly: gray moths materializing from hopelessness, sticky black beetles crawling along her skin during moments of shame, and most devastating of all, wasps that swarm when her carefully contained rage finally erupts. These manifestations aren’t simply magical—they’re viscerally real, forcing Nell to confront emotions she’s spent years suppressing.
The genius of Chewins’ approach lies in how she makes the fantastical feel utterly authentic. Anyone who has experienced anxiety, depression, or trauma will recognize the way difficult emotions can feel like living creatures crawling beneath the skin, demanding acknowledgment. The magic becomes a literalization of psychological states, making the invisible visible in ways that traditional realism cannot achieve.
Verse as Vehicle: Poetry in Service of Pain
Chewins’ decision to write in verse proves masterful, allowing her to capture the fragmented, overwhelming nature of adolescent experience. The poetry breathes with Nell’s emotional rhythms—short, staccato lines during moments of panic, longer flowing passages when she finds temporary peace. The white space on pages mirrors the silences in the Strand household, where trauma festers in what remains unsaid.
Consider this passage where Nell describes her first encounter with the wasps:
“Three steps into the forest.
Into the trees, and they come. They come,
exploding. Wasps. A swarm of them.
Moving around like a current.
When I look up, breathing like a trapped animal,
they have swallowed the trees around me.
They have swallowed the sky.”
The verse form allows Chewins to compress enormous emotional weight into precise, imagistic language. Each line break feels deliberate, creating pauses that force readers to sit with Nell’s terror and wonder. The repetition—”They come. They come”—mimics the obsessive nature of intrusive thoughts, while the imagery of being “swallowed” captures the all-consuming nature of rage and trauma.
Confronting Uncomfortable Truths
Where I Am the Swarm truly distinguishes itself is in its unflinching examination of the ways young women are failed by the adults meant to protect them. Nell’s relationship with her piano teacher, Mr. ——— (tellingly unnamed, making him representative of predatory men everywhere), builds with nauseating inevitability. Chewins doesn’t shy away from the grooming process—the gradual boundary violations, the way Nell internalizes shame and confusion, the manipulation disguised as mentorship.
The novel’s treatment of Nell’s mother Odette proves equally complex. Rather than presenting a simple victim or villain, Chewins creates a woman trapped by her own trauma and magical burden. When Odette tells teenage Nell, “I never wanted to have children. I probably shouldn’t have had them,” the moment stings with recognizable truth. Many readers will uncomfortably recognize moments when parents, overwhelmed by their own pain, inflicted wounds through honesty rather than cruelty.
The family therapy sessions scattered throughout the narrative ring with authentic dysfunction—the psychiatrist who ignores Nell entirely, the way each family member performs their assigned roles while avoiding genuine connection. Chewins captures how trauma becomes a family inheritance, passed down through magical gifts that feel more like curses.
The Power and Peril of Feminine Rage
Perhaps the novel’s greatest achievement lies in its exploration of feminine rage—both its necessity and its danger. Throughout literature, angry young women are often portrayed as either villains or victims requiring salvation. Chewins refuses both characterizations, instead presenting Nell’s rage as complicated and necessary, even when destructive.
The wasps that manifest Nell’s anger are terrifying—they swarm through her bedroom, coat the garden, even spill from her mouth during conversations. But they’re also liberating. When Nell finally stops trying to suppress them, stops eating only apples to keep her emotions muted, the wasps become her protection. They fill Mr. ———’s study when he violates her boundaries, giving her the courage to leave. They swarm when Cole kisses her without consent, marking her internal “no” even when she can’t voice it aloud.
“Every girl needs her anger,” Sabine tells Nell through a video call, and this becomes the novel’s central thesis. The magic system brilliantly illustrates how women are taught to internalize and pathologize their emotional responses to genuinely harmful situations. Nell’s journey involves learning not to eliminate her anger, but to recognize it as information—a warning system, a form of self-protection, a source of power.
Technical Mastery and Minor Missteps
Chewins demonstrates remarkable technical skill throughout, particularly in her use of sensory detail and metaphor. The Cape Town setting feels fully realized—from the wine lands to Boulders Beach, from the berg winds to the Atlantic’s knife-bright coldness. The musical elements woven throughout (Björk references, piano lessons, the boy’s band) create additional layers of meaning without overwhelming the narrative.
However, the novel occasionally struggles under the weight of its ambitions. Some plot threads—particularly around Nell’s relationship with her aunt Sabine—feel underdeveloped. The pacing in the middle section drags slightly as Nell cycles through destructive patterns, though this may be intentional, mirroring the repetitive nature of trauma responses.
The romantic subplot with Shay, while sensitively handled, sometimes feels overshadowed by the more dramatic elements of family dysfunction and abuse. Their relationship serves important thematic purposes—showing Nell what healthy connection looks like—but lacks the visceral intensity of the family dynamics.
Literary Connections and Cultural Context
I Am the Swarm sits comfortably alongside other contemporary works exploring magical realism and trauma, particularly Akwaeke Emezi’s Pet and Ibi Zoboi’s My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich. Like these authors, Chewins uses fantastical elements to examine real-world issues, particularly the ways marginalized voices—in this case, young women—are silenced or dismissed.
The novel also echoes themes found in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Shout and Meg Wolitzer’s Belzhar, books that similarly explore how young women process trauma and find their voices. However, Chewins’ magical realism allows for a more metaphorical approach, making difficult truths more accessible while maintaining their emotional impact.
A Necessary and Powerful Addition to YA Literature
I Am the Swarm succeeds as both an engaging narrative and an important cultural artifact. It gives voice to experiences often marginalized or romanticized in young adult fiction—the reality of living with mental illness, navigating family dysfunction, surviving sexual harassment, and learning to trust one’s own perceptions in a world that frequently gaslights young women.
The novel’s exploration of inherited trauma feels particularly relevant in our current moment, as we grapple with how pain passes between generations and how healing requires acknowledgment rather than suppression. Nell’s journey toward accepting all aspects of her magic—the beautiful ladybugs and the terrifying wasps—models a path toward wholeness that doesn’t require perfection or the elimination of difficult emotions.
While the book tackles heavy themes, it ultimately offers hope. The final image of dragonflies—representing hope that arrives after anger, bringing light back after carrying it away—suggests that healing is possible, even when it’s nonlinear and incomplete.
I Am the Swarm demands to be read, discussed, and shared. It’s a book that will resonate particularly with readers who have felt their emotions dismissed as “too much” or “overreacting,” offering validation and a pathway toward reclaiming their full emotional range. Chewins has created something rare: a young adult novel that respects its readers’ intelligence while addressing their lived experiences with unflinching honesty and genuine care.
This is essential reading for anyone seeking literature that grapples seriously with the complexity of growing up female in a world that often demands silence. The swarm, as Nell learns, is not something to be feared or suppressed—it’s something to be understood, respected, and ultimately integrated into the fullness of who we are.
