Barry Lyga

Morgan Baden

Cassie McKinney has always believed in the Hive. Social media used to be out of control, after all. People were torn apart by trolls and doxxers. Even hackers — like Cassie’s dad — were powerless against it. But then the Hive came. A better way to sanction people for what they do online. Cause trouble, get too many "condemns," and a crowd can come after you, teach you a lesson in real life. It’s safer, fairer and perfectly legal. Entering her senior year of high school, filled with grief over an unexpected loss, Cassie is primed to lash out. Egged on by new friends, she makes an edgy joke online. Cassie doubts anyone will notice. But the Hive notices everything. And as her viral comment whips an entire country into a frenzy, the Hive demands retribution. One moment Cassie is anonymous; the next, she’s infamous. And running for her life. With nowhere to turn, she must learn to rely on herself — and a group of Hive outcasts who may not be reliable — as she slowly uncovers the truth about the machine behind the Hive. New York Times bestselling author Barry Lyga and Morgan Baden have teamed up for the first time to create a novel that’s gripping, terrifying and more relevant every day.

The Hive

Kelsey Lynn

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 (view 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? (hide spoiler)] 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? (view spoiler)[ what was the point of TonyStark without a statement on that??? (hide spoiler)] 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 (view spoiler)[ a two-sentence apology to the internet in which she shrugs (hide spoiler)]
 
 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.

Charlot van Dijk

Toen ik het boek tegenkwam, was ik gelijk geinteresseerd. Het zou namelijk best een potentiele toekomst kunnen zijn. Het verhaal echter, zit wat minder sterk in elkaar. Sommige dingen kloppen gewoon niet of er wordt te makkelijk mee omgegaan. Ik vond Cassie wel een karakter waar ik mee kon meeleven, maar ze was het op sommige punten net niet. Ook de andere personen waren niet altijd realistisch, jammer want het had wel zo kunnen zijn. Het rouwen om haar vader, de bot die daarvoor gemaakt was, vond ik wel weer echt een leuk concept en kon ik mezelf ook zeker in vinden. Zulke plannen voor de toekomst zal ik geen weerstand tegen gaan bieden. Als er een concept als The Hive komt, dan zal ik hier net zo hard weerstand tegen bieden als Cassie haar moeder, want zij is wel een rolmodel hierin voor mij.

Ocean

I found the premise of this book very intriguing. It's easy to see how the idea of The Hive and "Hive justice" could become a reality, which makes the story somewhat believable. However, the story felt rushed at times and maybe even incomplete. Some of the things that happened were so drastic that the believability fell away. I did enjoy this book for what it was, but by the end I just felt like something was missing. It's almost like this book could have been developed into something much bigger and more detailed and become a trilogy - but as a standalone book it didn't quite feel developed enough. I really enjoyed the character development and it was great to see relationships being built.

The Hive

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