Scan barcode
missrmaxwell's review against another edition
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
lewzor's review against another edition
1.0
I'm not sure how to rate this book fairly. I considered giving it two stars because it was really an entertaining read--but I don't think that was necessarily the intention. Dystopian satire in the Trump era sometimes straddles a fine line between caricature and allegory, and this book is...not on that line. I understand the need to address cancel culture and the tendency towards mob mentality on social media. This book was just like...wild lol. No other way to describe it.
allielikesbooks's review against another edition
1.0
Do not read this book. It’s so terrible. The best I can do is warn you.
mafryc's review against another edition
3.0
The Hive.
Cassie lives in a world not too far ahead of 2019, so it slightly makes the cut off of fantasy / dystopian.
In this world, Cassie is your classic teenage heroine who posts something social unacceptable. How she got to that point, is a slight coming-of-age / teen-trying-to-find-her-way-in-the-world backstory. The crux of the book is that everyone on social media has been given the authority to dole out justice. Not only can they upvote or downvote someone's social media, they can condemn. Enough condemns, and the Hive Mob is legally allowed to come after you to dish you your "just" desserts.
So Cassie posts something bad, and the Mob is after her.
What I enjoyed about the book was that the writing was good. Not irritated by the style, as some YA novels can do. It was also engaging and I finished it decently quickly. Also, positive points earned for the tech theme. I may not have understood jack all, but TheHive committed to the IT side of things.
What I rolled my eyes at in the book was the politics subplot and some of the agenda-pushing points that felt so disjointed from the story that they literally were only there to push an agenda. Those areas of writing weren't quite ironed out yet to actually be, well, good. Now I did receive an ARC, so there's still room for the book to flesh out those portions.
There is a decent amount of swearing in the book, should that be something you're conscientious of.
In all, I do think The Hive will do well as a YA novel.
Cassie lives in a world not too far ahead of 2019, so it slightly makes the cut off of fantasy / dystopian.
In this world, Cassie is your classic teenage heroine who posts something social unacceptable. How she got to that point, is a slight coming-of-age / teen-trying-to-find-her-way-in-the-world backstory. The crux of the book is that everyone on social media has been given the authority to dole out justice. Not only can they upvote or downvote someone's social media, they can condemn. Enough condemns, and the Hive Mob is legally allowed to come after you to dish you your "just" desserts.
So Cassie posts something bad, and the Mob is after her.
What I enjoyed about the book was that the writing was good. Not irritated by the style, as some YA novels can do. It was also engaging and I finished it decently quickly. Also, positive points earned for the tech theme. I may not have understood jack all, but TheHive committed to the IT side of things.
What I rolled my eyes at in the book was the politics subplot and some of the agenda-pushing points that felt so disjointed from the story that they literally were only there to push an agenda. Those areas of writing weren't quite ironed out yet to actually be, well, good. Now I did receive an ARC, so there's still room for the book to flesh out those portions.
There is a decent amount of swearing in the book, should that be something you're conscientious of.
In all, I do think The Hive will do well as a YA novel.
bookishtiff's review against another edition
2.0
Can I just say I love this cover so much! Also, I don't know what material the dust jack is made out of but it's such a nice texture. Okay, enough talking about the cover, let's move on to the book.
The Hive is a way to punish people for the things they have done or said online. The government has used The Hive to help control crimes online. I theory it's a perfect system to help the human race become better people, but it's flawed. Cassie our main character finds out just how messed up the system really is when she says one joke about the president's kid and it goes viral. She ends up on the run for her life as she's being hunted down for her one post.
Character-wise I didn't really like Cassie but she had a lot more to her than some of the other books I've read. Cassie is consumed with grief after the loss of her father. She likes the Hive and believes in it. But when she moves to a new school Cassie is shown that the Hive can be used for personal gain. I really didn't enjoy Cassie's mom as a character till later on in the book. I didn't like how she was constantly trying to for Cassie to get over her father's death. I didn't think that was right and she should have let Cassie deal with her grief in her own way as long as she's not hurting herself which she wasn't. I do like the group of hackers we meet later on in the book. I feel like they were my favorite characters by far.
Plot-wise the book was fast-paced and it kept me reading. I thought the plot was decent but I feel like it was on the bit of the long side, page wise. Once again not a terrible book but it isn't a five star read for me.
The Hive is a way to punish people for the things they have done or said online. The government has used The Hive to help control crimes online. I theory it's a perfect system to help the human race become better people, but it's flawed. Cassie our main character finds out just how messed up the system really is when she says one joke about the president's kid and it goes viral. She ends up on the run for her life as she's being hunted down for her one post.
Character-wise I didn't really like Cassie but she had a lot more to her than some of the other books I've read. Cassie is consumed with grief after the loss of her father. She likes the Hive and believes in it. But when she moves to a new school Cassie is shown that the Hive can be used for personal gain. I really didn't enjoy Cassie's mom as a character till later on in the book. I didn't like how she was constantly trying to for Cassie to get over her father's death. I didn't think that was right and she should have let Cassie deal with her grief in her own way as long as she's not hurting herself which she wasn't. I do like the group of hackers we meet later on in the book. I feel like they were my favorite characters by far.
Plot-wise the book was fast-paced and it kept me reading. I thought the plot was decent but I feel like it was on the bit of the long side, page wise. Once again not a terrible book but it isn't a five star read for me.
zbrarian's review against another edition
5.0
wow. Wow. WOw. WOWOWOOOW I stayed up realllllly late to finish this one. I couldn’t stop reading. None stop anxiety through the entire story, wondering what was going to happen. The story kept reminding me of The Purge. Get rid of people because of their social media posts. Could this happen some day? With all the negativity and bullying online lately, eventually someone or something all come along and begin to mete out justice. Scary to think this is a possible path society is going down right now. Definitely one for a win! Cassie is scrappy and smart, smarter than people give her credit for. Would love a follow up to see what happens next for her.
someonetookit's review against another edition
5.0
ACTUAL RATING 4.5 STARS
So I'll keep this short. This novel is a scathing analysis on where the world is headed should we continue our love affair with social media in our current political climate.
Its kind of similar to that episode of Black Mirror with Bryce Dallas Howard where she is obssessed with her rating but instead of a 20 something year old woman falling apart, its a teenager who makes a stupid post and her whole world implodes.
The characters are generally well rounded and act like what they are, normal mid to late teens kids who shouldn't have the weight of the world on their shoulders.
Its fast paced and punchy with an ending that gives you all the feels.
Only downside was that I had to constantly flip between Wikipedia and the novel because it uses A LOT of technological language and I am not a person who understands this...
Well worth a read and I eagerly await further publications from this group of writers.
Check out my more indepth review at https://someonetookit.wordpress.com/2019/10/03/the-hive-barry-lyga-morgan-baden-jennifer-beals-and-tom-jacobson/
Thankyou to Kids Can Press and Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. THe opinions contained within are my own and have in no way been influenced by the publisher.
So I'll keep this short. This novel is a scathing analysis on where the world is headed should we continue our love affair with social media in our current political climate.
Its kind of similar to that episode of Black Mirror with Bryce Dallas Howard where she is obssessed with her rating but instead of a 20 something year old woman falling apart, its a teenager who makes a stupid post and her whole world implodes.
The characters are generally well rounded and act like what they are, normal mid to late teens kids who shouldn't have the weight of the world on their shoulders.
Its fast paced and punchy with an ending that gives you all the feels.
Only downside was that I had to constantly flip between Wikipedia and the novel because it uses A LOT of technological language and I am not a person who understands this...
Well worth a read and I eagerly await further publications from this group of writers.
Check out my more indepth review at https://someonetookit.wordpress.com/2019/10/03/the-hive-barry-lyga-morgan-baden-jennifer-beals-and-tom-jacobson/
Thankyou to Kids Can Press and Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. THe opinions contained within are my own and have in no way been influenced by the publisher.
willwork4airfare's review against another edition
4.0
This book is very heavy-handed and a little silly, surprisingly violent for a YA, but overall was pretty interesting and I stayed up way too late to finish it in the end.
ashleyyychambers's review against another edition
3.0
“Ask questions. It’s the only way you’ll learn anything remotely interesting in the world. The question is humanity’s best tool for forward progress.”
abibliophagist's review against another edition
2.0
1.5 nearly DNF'd but I kept hoping it'd pull through.
I've had this on my shelf for nearly a year, I got it for myself as part of my birthday hall last year and as we quickly approach my bday and I was in a slump I figured why not.
The concept is solid and interesting, Black Mirror Esque, techno-thriller, and topical subject.
We follow Cassie, a teen who is the daughter of a famous hacker, in the age where the government has made it legal, purge style, for the masses to dole out punishment for social media posts with enough condemns. Cassie supports this until she's the one being hunted down.
This book had a lot of issues, the plot wasn't fully thought out, the characters were weak, the parody of society was too on the nose in a bad way, and unfortunately, Cassie is for sure in the running for most unlikable character ever. I don't have to like characters, heck some of my favorite stories are about unlikeable anti-heroes. But Cassie was literally the worst. From the beginning, she fights everyone, every single person, she's mean to everyone, for no reason beyond adults trying their darnedest to write teenage apathy. Even once the poo hits the fan, she questions and is mean to people who try and help her. To the point that it gets people literally killed.
She's in the situation in the first place because she decides to a fake friend the popular kids who egg her on to make a tasteless joke on Twitter. Then dip *insert surprised Pikachu face here*. Characters that you never see again, and honestly didn't need to exist, other than maybe to try and pass the blame off our super unlikable hero?
They weren't the only characters that didn't need to exist, as honestly nearly all the characters were so poorly fleshed out that they could be condensed, replaced, or cut completely without missing them. Mom? Does absolutely nothing except organize a mom protest that goes nowhere. Hacker dad? Honestly best character. But I can't help but wonder if it takes away from the message, would people bother to help Cassie if her dad wasn't famous? How many people have had to suffer the fate of hive justice because they didn't have a hacker dad that got you an in with an underground hacker movement? Underground hacker movement? What did they actually do in this book? Nothing, every big revelation was made by Cassie's mad skillz at hacking or was just told to her by insiders. Insider? Didn't do anything or tell her anything they didn't eventually figure out themselves. President? They tried so hard to write this guy in the cadence of Trump, funny at first, but then a caricature that just detracted from the whole thing. Do you want me to believe that no one saw the flaw in Hive Justice when a Trump-like guy would be the first one Hive justice would go for? The fact that he's still posting his idiotic things means there is an obvious flaw in the system. Red Dread, the random redhaired dreadlock rich boy, so confused by this character, he's there for a while and then the authors decided to just be done with him, so we were. Cute hacker boy, who dresses and acts like my nerdy friends in high school circa 2004? MIA 90% of the book, until he shows up, just to be Cassie's hype man, and then love interest? Literally, every character was so poorly thought out, utilized, and executed.
It doesn't stop with the characters, the plot is so full of holes that it was frustrating. I get that writing an episode of Black Mirror is probably hard. A lot goes into a scifi that's so near future and relevant. But it just felt like these authors had an idea and never bothered to really figure it out. They start to, the obvious like if this is legal then how is the government involved, how is it regulated, who runs it? They touch on these things but conveniently don't go in deep. They don't have to go in terribly deep, but deep enough to make me believe it, and I didn't believe it. In multiple places the characters act like some big reveal happened, stating things like "oh what a revelation" but no matter how I reread the paragraph, at no point was the thing explained, why it mattered, or how that changes things, it just states that it does. For example Also if legally you can kill someone with enough condemnation, what about people in the crossfire, if someone gets killed because someone else is a target, what are the laws around that? Not fleshed out well.
Honestly, the whole government conspiracy took away from the message for me, I hate to say it but I don't think we need government overreach to make the concept of hive justice a bad one. People are terrible, I think focusing on how people would manipulate the system is enough (they start the book like this and I really thought that's where it was going, but they had to make it the big bad government). I think the story would have been way more compelling if it showed how just some scorned teenagers could manipulate the system into a death sentence. What makes this worse is the "big revelation" is not used, it doesn't get Cassie out of her situation, she doesn't reveal it to anyone, and she doesn't use it to change anything. I think maybe the authors thought they were setting it up for a sequel but it didn't feel like it. The book acts like it gets her out of her situation, which is weird, even says it does a few times, but it doesn't, what gets her out of her situation is so beyond stupid
In the end, the end of her situation had nothing to do with her hacking skills, the underground network, the people along the way, or her famous dad. It's what the book should have focused on, the internet is mercurial. Hive justice wouldn't work cause punishment would be exponentially worse when things are new, but people will just get bored and move on. This should have been the point, but instead, they focused on a completely different thing, but then still ended it on the message that was staring them in the face the whole time.
This book was a hot mess. It ended with such an unbelievable little puff of air that I'm not sure what their intentions were, what the message was supposed to be, and where it would go if it had a sequel. They messed up that finale and rendered all the rest of the plot useless. I'm so baffled at how poorly put together that story was that I've lost my groove and don't even know how to finish this.
All in all, skip it and watch some Black Mirror.
I've had this on my shelf for nearly a year, I got it for myself as part of my birthday hall last year and as we quickly approach my bday and I was in a slump I figured why not.
The concept is solid and interesting, Black Mirror Esque, techno-thriller, and topical subject.
We follow Cassie, a teen who is the daughter of a famous hacker, in the age where the government has made it legal, purge style, for the masses to dole out punishment for social media posts with enough condemns. Cassie supports this until she's the one being hunted down.
This book had a lot of issues, the plot wasn't fully thought out, the characters were weak, the parody of society was too on the nose in a bad way, and unfortunately, Cassie is for sure in the running for most unlikable character ever. I don't have to like characters, heck some of my favorite stories are about unlikeable anti-heroes. But Cassie was literally the worst. From the beginning, she fights everyone, every single person, she's mean to everyone, for no reason beyond adults trying their darnedest to write teenage apathy. Even once the poo hits the fan, she questions and is mean to people who try and help her. To the point that it gets people literally killed.
She's in the situation in the first place because she decides to a fake friend the popular kids who egg her on to make a tasteless joke on Twitter. Then dip *insert surprised Pikachu face here*. Characters that you never see again, and honestly didn't need to exist, other than maybe to try and pass the blame off our super unlikable hero?
They weren't the only characters that didn't need to exist, as honestly nearly all the characters were so poorly fleshed out that they could be condensed, replaced, or cut completely without missing them. Mom? Does absolutely nothing except organize a mom protest that goes nowhere. Hacker dad? Honestly best character. But I can't help but wonder if it takes away from the message, would people bother to help Cassie if her dad wasn't famous? How many people have had to suffer the fate of hive justice because they didn't have a hacker dad that got you an in with an underground hacker movement? Underground hacker movement? What did they actually do in this book? Nothing, every big revelation was made by Cassie's mad skillz at hacking or was just told to her by insiders. Insider? Didn't do anything or tell her anything they didn't eventually figure out themselves. President? They tried so hard to write this guy in the cadence of Trump, funny at first, but then a caricature that just detracted from the whole thing. Do you want me to believe that no one saw the flaw in Hive Justice when a Trump-like guy would be the first one Hive justice would go for? The fact that he's still posting his idiotic things means there is an obvious flaw in the system. Red Dread, the random redhaired dreadlock rich boy, so confused by this character, he's there for a while and then the authors decided to just be done with him, so we were. Cute hacker boy, who dresses and acts like my nerdy friends in high school circa 2004? MIA 90% of the book, until he shows up, just to be Cassie's hype man, and then love interest? Literally, every character was so poorly thought out, utilized, and executed.
It doesn't stop with the characters, the plot is so full of holes that it was frustrating. I get that writing an episode of Black Mirror is probably hard. A lot goes into a scifi that's so near future and relevant. But it just felt like these authors had an idea and never bothered to really figure it out. They start to, the obvious like if this is legal then how is the government involved, how is it regulated, who runs it? They touch on these things but conveniently don't go in deep. They don't have to go in terribly deep, but deep enough to make me believe it, and I didn't believe it. In multiple places the characters act like some big reveal happened, stating things like "oh what a revelation" but no matter how I reread the paragraph, at no point was the thing explained, why it mattered, or how that changes things, it just states that it does. For example
Spoiler
when they confront the lady who helped make the hive, and the lady is like, we didn't expect apathy, like how does apathy affect this? How would that make it worse? Then later it turns out its ghost accounts, so once again, why would it matter if people are apathetic?Spoiler
what was the point of TonyStark without a statement on that???Honestly, the whole government conspiracy took away from the message for me, I hate to say it but I don't think we need government overreach to make the concept of hive justice a bad one. People are terrible, I think focusing on how people would manipulate the system is enough (they start the book like this and I really thought that's where it was going, but they had to make it the big bad government). I think the story would have been way more compelling if it showed how just some scorned teenagers could manipulate the system into a death sentence. What makes this worse is the "big revelation" is not used, it doesn't get Cassie out of her situation, she doesn't reveal it to anyone, and she doesn't use it to change anything. I think maybe the authors thought they were setting it up for a sequel but it didn't feel like it. The book acts like it gets her out of her situation, which is weird, even says it does a few times, but it doesn't, what gets her out of her situation is so beyond stupid
Spoiler
a two-sentence apology to the internet in which she shrugsIn the end, the end of her situation had nothing to do with her hacking skills, the underground network, the people along the way, or her famous dad. It's what the book should have focused on, the internet is mercurial. Hive justice wouldn't work cause punishment would be exponentially worse when things are new, but people will just get bored and move on. This should have been the point, but instead, they focused on a completely different thing, but then still ended it on the message that was staring them in the face the whole time.
This book was a hot mess. It ended with such an unbelievable little puff of air that I'm not sure what their intentions were, what the message was supposed to be, and where it would go if it had a sequel. They messed up that finale and rendered all the rest of the plot useless. I'm so baffled at how poorly put together that story was that I've lost my groove and don't even know how to finish this.
All in all, skip it and watch some Black Mirror.