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A review by carweneve
The Hive by Gill Hornby
2.0
I won an ARC of this book from a First Reads Giveaway.
It's not a book I would usually have picked up, unless my book group was reading it, and I've neither worked in a primary school nor had children attend one, so clearly I'm not really the target audience. That being said, it was a nice easy read and a not altogether predictable story. I found some of the characters hard to separate (Clover, Collete, Jasmine, Sharon especially were all pretty frequently mentioned but not fleshed out much beyond the first single-sentence descriptions so I found it hard to keep tabs on who was who and what was what) and some of it seemed a bit slap-dash like the author had thought of something, but couldn't quite figure out how to write it properly.
SPOILERS
Particularly and bizarrely, the whole situation with Bea. She seemed to be a main character and much of the story whirled around her, but we didn't know her at all. Why had she started to ignore Rachel all of a sudden? Why did she really seem to turn on her? Why did she suddenly get a (made up) job? Why was she putting weight on? All these things were happening with no explanation as to why and it made everything feel disjointed and not quite right. And then the ending? Just weird. Bea gets run over and needs a carer? What was the point in that? I just didn't get it.
END OF SPOILERS
I might recommend this book to friends who have/had kids at primary school (perhaps they'll see it in a whole different light), but probably not to anyone else, unless they are looking for a throwaway book to take on holiday.
It's not a book I would usually have picked up, unless my book group was reading it, and I've neither worked in a primary school nor had children attend one, so clearly I'm not really the target audience. That being said, it was a nice easy read and a not altogether predictable story. I found some of the characters hard to separate (Clover, Collete, Jasmine, Sharon especially were all pretty frequently mentioned but not fleshed out much beyond the first single-sentence descriptions so I found it hard to keep tabs on who was who and what was what) and some of it seemed a bit slap-dash like the author had thought of something, but couldn't quite figure out how to write it properly.
SPOILERS
Particularly and bizarrely, the whole situation with Bea. She seemed to be a main character and much of the story whirled around her, but we didn't know her at all. Why had she started to ignore Rachel all of a sudden? Why did she really seem to turn on her? Why did she suddenly get a (made up) job? Why was she putting weight on? All these things were happening with no explanation as to why and it made everything feel disjointed and not quite right. And then the ending? Just weird. Bea gets run over and needs a carer? What was the point in that? I just didn't get it.
END OF SPOILERS
I might recommend this book to friends who have/had kids at primary school (perhaps they'll see it in a whole different light), but probably not to anyone else, unless they are looking for a throwaway book to take on holiday.