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A review by chelseaz
The Hive by Gill Hornby
1.0
The Hive- what a great title for a book about women's relationships and social structures within society. I picked this one up on a whim and it's been sitting on the TBR shelf catching my eye due to the cover... We all know what they say about judging a book by it's cover.
The first 70 pages- What is that?
The structure is seriously lacking. The minutes from the meetings- I can't even bring myself to dissect, they would have been better left alluded to than provided.
This novel presents multiple shifting POV's , that to begin with you aren't entirely clear how they all connect together. This in itself was not the problem, I'm happy to switch between as many different characters as you can throw at me and many of my favourite books provide multiple perspectives and unreliable narrators, no, the problem here was the execution. It just wasn't done well, I'm sorry.
I haven't researched this book but was it a debut? Was it rushed for publication? I just can't fathom how this got past editors and a publication house in this formatting.
As the novel progressed and characters became more developed I felt like the author Gill Hornby seemed to find a better footing, and there were moments where I thought YES this is what this book should be. I liked the title, the cover, I liked the idea and I was even particularly fond of one of the characters (her story I'd love to read as long as it's nothing like the rest of this book), but that's where it ended for me in terms of the elements of this book that I loved. I'd love to know how the author feels about this work now in retrospect.
The light and fluffy ending did nothing for me in regards to the issues presented sparingly within this book which included grief, depression, divorce, suicide, social standing and status, power, community, body shaming and bullying just to name a few. Too much of everything and not enough of anything. On to the next read.
The first 70 pages- What is that?
The structure is seriously lacking. The minutes from the meetings- I can't even bring myself to dissect, they would have been better left alluded to than provided.
This novel presents multiple shifting POV's , that to begin with you aren't entirely clear how they all connect together. This in itself was not the problem, I'm happy to switch between as many different characters as you can throw at me and many of my favourite books provide multiple perspectives and unreliable narrators, no, the problem here was the execution. It just wasn't done well, I'm sorry.
I haven't researched this book but was it a debut? Was it rushed for publication? I just can't fathom how this got past editors and a publication house in this formatting.
As the novel progressed and characters became more developed I felt like the author Gill Hornby seemed to find a better footing, and there were moments where I thought YES this is what this book should be. I liked the title, the cover, I liked the idea and I was even particularly fond of one of the characters (her story I'd love to read as long as it's nothing like the rest of this book), but that's where it ended for me in terms of the elements of this book that I loved. I'd love to know how the author feels about this work now in retrospect.
The light and fluffy ending did nothing for me in regards to the issues presented sparingly within this book which included grief, depression, divorce, suicide, social standing and status, power, community, body shaming and bullying just to name a few. Too much of everything and not enough of anything. On to the next read.