Steven worries a lot. He especially worries about his new brother, who was just born with a host of health problems. Soon after the baby’s birth, an angelic creature visits Steve in his dreams, promising that she can fix the baby. Her vists soothe Steven, and even when he finds out she is the wasp queen building a nest on his roof, he feels good, like everything is going to be all right. But can he really trust the wasp queen? Is she as benevolent as she seems? What does she mean when she refers to the “new” baby? Or is she a figment of his imagination, conjured in a time of anxiety?
The Nest captured me from the very first page. I knew nothing about it. If you would like a similar experience, you may want to stop reading. It’s a hard novel to talk about without giving things away. I’m not including spoilers, but if you want to know less rather than more (I recommend it), now’s the time to go get this excellently crafted horror novel for middle grader readers, and start reading.
The Nest is a trip—an eerie, horrifying trip. This is not the kind of horror that involves gore, murders, or monsters. This seemingly gentle, benevolent wasp queen has offered to help Steven and his family, keep them safe. This is especially appealing to Steve, who has had therapy for his anxiety. And yet something sinister seems to lurk somewhere beneath the surface. The reader is left to infer the wasp queen’s true nature from little details. As Steve warmly thinks about how the wasps are repairing his baby brother, the wasp queen tells him he’ll be even happier when he sees the baby in the crib. “He’s already in the crib,” Steve says, confused. “Not your new baby,” she says in reply. And just like that, Steve’s (and perhaps the reader’s) comfort is replaced by concern and dread. Little by little, Oppel builds on this sense of foreboding until Steve must make crucial decisions about who he trusts and what he values in a nail-biting climax.
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