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A review by mafryc
The Hive by Barry Lyga, Morgan Baden
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.