Fun Fact: Since I live in California and have lived here my entire life, I’ve never seen or heard a cicada unless it was through a speaker of some kind. Which also means I’ve never has to go through what it sounds like to have that pervasive drone outside my house night after night when I’m trying to sleep or have them flying around when I’m just trying to do something outdoors. Heck, I don’t know anything about cicadas except they’re supposed to come around about every seventeen years. They’re just not an insect/bug we learn about over here in California. 

 

I’m ready to scapegoat my complete ignorance and connection to cicadas as to why I didn’t enjoy this book. It would be easy to let it go at that. The thing is, I know that’s only a part of why this book and I didn’t vibe. 

 

To be honest, I had a hard time connecting to most of the characters because I either found them to be superficial (the “cop mom”) or a little too Hollywood-esque (the “fixers” and “the tech mogul”). The only character I found had any interesting complexities was “the scientist”. Even looking at this list it looks like the casting call roll sheet for a cable or streaming drama show. 

 

Give it a decent digital effects budget and it could be coming to a streaming device near you, because the story was interesting but, in my opinion, lacked any substantial depth. I like my horror to be a distorted looking glass peering back at the dark and disturbed side of humanity. I want my horror to peel back the surface and show me the bloody side of human nature. While The Swarm is bloody and horrible, it wasn’t giving me anything to react to. It was just giving me a lot of bugs and guts. 

 

I was provided a copy of this title by the publisher and author via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. All reviews rated three stars and under will not appear on my social media. Thank you.