A review by josefinef
The Ardent Swarm by Yamen Manai

4.0

I picked this book from the January 2021 Amazon's First Reader program and I liked it much more than I thought I would. This is the type of book I rarely read, but I was intrigued by the description.

The main story is about Sidi, who, one morning, finds one of his bee stocks destroyed and all the bees murdered. What happened? Who did it? And how can he help his bees?

This is a wholesome story with fascinating information about bees, written in an engaging and beautiful language. It also provides a glimpse into life in Tunisia and the challenges they were facing when moving towards a democratic country. While it is a shorter book, I was not able to read it in one sitting. I wanted to slowly go through it, so I get some of the metaphors. I wanted to enjoy every bit of it and make it last.

The only thing that I didn't like as much was the prologue. I didn’t think it added to the story (rather made it awkward), but the rest of the book was AMAZING!