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seraphjewel 's review for:
Swarm
by Jennifer D. Lyle
This is a perfectly fine book. Not great, not terrible. Just fine. The sort of book I wouldn't recommend, but wouldn't discourage anyone from reading, either.
I usually don't do spoilers in my reviews, but this needs to be said. The book falls into standard zombie apocalypse clichés. Nothing new was really explored beyond what infected people, and even that wasn't done well. The concept of killer butterflies was promising, and the first part built up some tension and mystery. It was almost immediately killed, making the rest pretty boring with only occasional moments that worked.
There were a lot of bits that made no sense. How is their house stocked with enough food to feed five people and a cat, for days on end? Why didn't the military get involved sooner? Couldn't they use tanks and fighter jets to kill the butterflies? Would regular bug killer get rid of them? Don't even get me started on the infection. I was okay with the body horror, but didn't understand how butterflies caused violent behavior.
The ending was very lackluster. It was where the book failed the clichés. It's awful to say, but someone should have died. Not just the nameless characters, but someone involved in the plot. There was also so many side stories that got no closure. I can almost appreciate the smaller scale, but I don't think the story took advantage. There was no sense of claustrophobia or tension between the characters. Nothing was done with Shur forgetting her pills.
The gory parts were pretty good, though.
I usually don't do spoilers in my reviews, but this needs to be said. The book falls into standard zombie apocalypse clichés. Nothing new was really explored beyond what infected people, and even that wasn't done well. The concept of killer butterflies was promising, and the first part built up some tension and mystery. It was almost immediately killed, making the rest pretty boring with only occasional moments that worked.
There were a lot of bits that made no sense. How is their house stocked with enough food to feed five people and a cat, for days on end? Why didn't the military get involved sooner? Couldn't they use tanks and fighter jets to kill the butterflies? Would regular bug killer get rid of them? Don't even get me started on the infection. I was okay with the body horror, but didn't understand how butterflies caused violent behavior.
The ending was very lackluster. It was where the book failed the clichés. It's awful to say, but someone should have died. Not just the nameless characters, but someone involved in the plot. There was also so many side stories that got no closure. I can almost appreciate the smaller scale, but I don't think the story took advantage. There was no sense of claustrophobia or tension between the characters. Nothing was done with Shur forgetting her pills.
The gory parts were pretty good, though.