Wow, what a surprise!

I didn't know what to expect coming into this book. However, I'm completely blown away!

I'm not really a fan of YA, but when I saw that this was like a dystopian book about social media.. I knew I had to jump right in.

So.. a little bit about the story: There is this concept called "the Hive". This is a group that regulates the internet by giving sanctions to individuals that act improperly or inappropriately online. And don't think you can get something past them.. because you can't. They are ALWAYS watching...

I really like Dystopian novels. It kind of shows you what life could be like in a not-too-distant-future.. and also in an eerily realistic fashion. Everyone in society is now more aware about privacy online. This book takes that concept to a whole new level.

This was an eye-opening read and I'm extremely happy that I read it! Highly recommended!

I loved his I Hunt Killer series and I was excited to pick this up. It is definitely quite different from his other series, but also a good read. It took the modern day problem of social media and applied an interesting solution. I was kept interested throughout the book. I would give it 4.5 stars.

Please note: I received a free digital copy of this book (via NetGalley) from its publisher in exchange for an honest and fair review.

The Hive by Barry Lyga and Morgan Baden is a modern dystopian fiction that deals with the dangers of social media, when taken to the extreme. Set in the not too distant future, people are held accountable for everything they do online. Every action can be liked or condemned. Receive enough condemn votes, and you become subject to Hive justice. This action packed book is reminiscent of an episode of Black Mirror. It's entertaining but also scary, especially given current events and societies wide spread use of social media.

The Hive is well written with detailed world building. I was not a fan of the main character, Cassie. I just never warmed up to her. But have no fear there is plenty of action, suspense, and plot twists to keep you turning pages well into the night. If you are a fan of compelling dystopian page turners then go read this book! This gem is published by Kids Can Press and is available for purchase from all major booksellers. I give The Hive a solid 3 1/2 out of 5 gems. Happy Reading!

Okay, I loved this book. As an Instagrammer I am fascinated by the concept of likes and dislikes transforming into the analog world. As the mother of a coder I also loved getting a view of this world. I found myself angered and upset at all of the responses and how fickle we can be. I already hate how people internet grandstand and bully so this book resonated deeply. I also loved that it was a daughter and mother perspective. I ranked this book 5 stars however there was a lot of tech talk in it that might make it lower for other people, but it didn't bother me.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Thank you NetGalley.

The Hive is something easy to relate to and understand. How does social media already dictate our lives? How often are we looking at our social media websites / profiles?
This book covers that exact topic, and honestly I can picture this happening in current time.
Some areas of this book were slow or more difficult to follow honestly.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me a copy in exchange of an honest review.
I found The Hive so interesting, especially considering how big of an effect social media has on today's society. Although the parts where Cassie is talking to her dad were a little bit confusing to me, overall, it was an amazing read! I was enthralled with the idea of an app that controlled how society treated people based on their ratings.

I appreciate the opportunity to review this book, but unfortunately it just wasn’t for me. I have seen a lot of good reviews so I still would recommend a fellow reader to try it out.

Thank you netgalley and publisher for the early copy.

I checked out the first few chapters but could not connect with the writing style.

This book is the equivalent of black mirror meets hunger games meets the purge. I immediately envisioned this as our future government combined with our obsessive use of social media. Imagine you post something that you feel is relatively harmless, but centered on a very important person. And before you know it you are the most wanted person - and there are rules to follow. Your phone sets off alerts telling people where you are so they can have their own vigilante justice. You can’t get rid of your phone, family and friends cannot help you. What do you do? This book is in an insane roller coaster that threw me at the end - I did not see the twists and turns coming. This is a MUST READ.

This book was not engaging or captivating. As a high school librarian, I am used to reading all sorts of YA books and this was not one that I would recommend to students. It had a weak plot and did not hook me at all. Sadly, I will not purchase this for my school library.

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.

I struggled with my rating on this one. I would say a good 75% of this book is a solid 4 but there are aspects that brought it down to a 3 in the end. The beginning introduces us to Cassie who is dealing with the loss of her well known hacker father. Her and her mother have moved to a new apartment and she's starting a new school. The downfall was Cassie's attitude in the beginning. She is a very angry soul and though I can grasp this is due to her loss it still took a lot away from connecting with her from the start. She came off aggressively angry to the point of angsty teenager. The insta crush connection she makes with the guys was a downside as well. Thankfully though this is a rare appearance as the story progresses.

For readers who don't know much about code this can be a very slow read with the tech talk, innuendos and geeky code jokes. I personally enjoyed a lot of them and there is decent enough explanation behind it all. Like I said though, non-geekers won't enjoy this aspect. There is a LOT of tech talk in the book. My inner nerd is mightily pleased with someone taking the world of coding and wrapping it up into an action packed book though.

The action is the plus side. The HUGE plus side to this novel. Her rush to stay alive and avoid the HIVE mob had me utterly sucked in. The book goes between Cassie's POV and her mother's (Rachel). Having the POV of a mother who will stop at nothing to keep her daughter safe and dealing with the separation during a time of crisis was felt through the pages. I was pissed off and lost right along with the characters. More importantly the unjustified actions/threats of the manipulators and the mob throughout this book really make you take a look at our world today regarding cyber bullying, political corruptness and following the crowd. Could you imagine a world where the citizens can decide your punishment and deal it to you based on your transgression level? Highschoolers, college kids, unknown neighbors coming for you in a rowdy mob to deliver the hand of justice at your doorstep.

A very unique story line that readers will recognize and recoil from. The issues we all have with social media are being managed by popular mandate. Your online content could be your own downfall. Barry Lyga and Morgan Baden have built a community populated by everyone who has ever been on social media and given the characters the means to police the world. But, as always, someone has the ability to slant the popular opinions of the many while keeping their own opinions secret. Readers will recognize many characters, names were changed to protect the not so innocent. This was a great read and I hope, a warning to many on what can happen if.....

"Her dad used to tell her about the days when someone's name trending on Twitter meant they had died, or, best case, had dropped an unannounced album. But slowly, the online behaviors that were and were not acceptable began to change."

This book is essentially The Purge x Cancel Culture and it is terrifying in how plausible the plotline is. It's a smart speculative look at what could happen if the government created a system to rein in the worst parts of social media only to make things arguably worse.

"Now, people were fully accountable for their online behavior... and faced real-world consequences. [...] Things were better now. People were more careful online, more responsible. How could that be wrong?"

Cassie McKinney is our sixteen-year-old main character, daughter of a famous hacker with her own coding skills up her sleeve. But since her father died six months earlier, she hasn't really worked with code. She's angry and she wants to participate in some Hive justice... until she is on the wrong end of the Hive herself and running for her life.

The government created a system - the Hive - which allows people to assign likes and dislikes based on the online activity of... everyone. You know that social networking score episode of Black Mirror? Kind of like that only on steroids. Basically, if enough people don't like what you said or did and you get enough condemns, that means that you can be punished. Depending on the severity, the mob has a set amount of time to find and punish the target to exact justice.

I think my favorite parts were the presidential press conferences; it is no secret who the authors were emulating when coming up with President Dean Hythe.

"I ran for this office and won - twice - with some of the biggest margins in history. Some say the biggest margins. I don't say that. I just say some of the biggest because maybe there are some bigger. I don't know of any, but maybe there are."

"It isn't about me. Don't write that in your papers and on your blogs or whatever. This is the will of the people. I ran and won twice to I've power back to the people, and now they have that power now. It's up to them to use it."

While hilarious, this also points a strong message about how dangerous strongman politics are and how the current administration is weaponizing the anger and fear of the people to push an agenda and deflect. This is shown in the #trending Blinqs that appear throughout, and how there is always a small group talking about new bills signed into law that no one is talking about.

As the story progresses and the Hive Mob gets more rabid in their pursuit of justice, their Blinqs become increasingly hard to read. Which is the point: the anonymity of online leads people to say some truly horrific stuff when they have no consequences... suffice to say that it doesn't get better when it's condoned. I liked the mixed media component with press conferences and trending online messages to show how the world itself views our main character.

I'll admit that I found the narrative a little heavy on technical and hacking jargon at times but for the most part, I just let my eyes glaze over and I didn't seem to miss anything important. And I think the tech / hacking speak will be appreciated by readers versed in that. The pacing was a little rough with a lot of exposition a little over halfway, but otherwise, I was fully engaged (and horrified) by this speculative future. The ending is a little more open-ended than I would like because I like finite endings, but it made sense and didn't feel rushed.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Hive! I was sucked into the story and read it in two sittings because I was so invested in Cassie and her plight. This is a great piece of speculative fiction that's important for our times today.

Representation: biracial rep, women in STEM
Content warnings: bullying, death, doxxing, grief, loss of a loved one, online threats (rape, violence, murder), violence

eARC provided by the publisher, Kids Can Press, in exchange for my honest review. This does not affect the content of my review. Quotations are from an uncorrected proof and subject to change upon fina publication.

This book was received as an ARC from Kids Can Press in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

The thrilling suspense of one organization can make or break one person's way of life. Cassie McKinney went from a nobody to one of the most infamous people on the move all because of a social media comment she had made that was meant to be a joke. Cassie on the run, must find a way out even if it means banning together with a bunch of Hive misfits and unlocking the mystery behind the machine that controls all of Hive before it's too late. Once a fan now fugitive, Cassie's world has turned upside down. I can not say enough about how invested I was. It was like I ran with Cassie trying to help her as much as I can cheering her on as she was escaping and literally running for her life.

We will consider adding this title to our YA collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

Digital Citizenship/Footprints is often a topic that is avoided especially at the grades I teach but I believe this is the toughest time that students have in doing that. There are so many situations in which the students find themselves in—meaning that they’re posting things they shouldn’t or someone else is. It is so difficult to navigate the world of social media in today’s society that students NEED these lessons and these books. So having a book that focuses a lot on that is absolutely amazing and riveting in and of itself. It is so hard to find books that are written well in character development, plot, and world building. The character design in this book is and was great. I enjoyed reading all the descriptions, development, and love put into the characters from the very beginning. Many of the characters have found their way in the world that is so important to that character that I can’t help but love them.

The Hive really focuses on the posting on social media, or an AI type of world, and how a “cult like mob” hunts down those who do bad in a vigilante justice type of way. Now this is a great way to show students that anything you post can and will be seen by someone somewhere and that is not going to be a good thing. It can prevent you from getting a job, going to your favorite college, or even getting into an honors type of club. Depending on what you post you can be barred from a lot. The Hive truly shows this in it’s style and story when Cassie posts something and finds herself at the mercy of the mob.

I enjoyed the setting which was extremely fun and imaginative. There is a lot of backstory that can help you understand what is happening cover to cover. I would suggest this book for a book club or even independent reading as it is not a difficult read and definitely has the high interest aspect to it that all students can get with. The characters that rush into danger is immediately something that my students would gravitate to and love to read—because who doesn’t love action in every form? Especially when it is all about what these students do IN REAL LIFE. Maybe it can be a rude awakening for some of them to see what our world is coming to. Maybe they’ll think twice about what they post or say.

This was a surprising DNF. I really enjoyed Barry Lyga's previous series, so when I saw that he wrote another book, I was all for it.

Unfortunately, the writing in this one didn't connect with me as much as I'd hoped. I tried twice two get through the first few chapters, but the plot wasn't interesting enough for me too continue on.

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I feel like the ideas are plausible. Hive justice is a thing I could see happening. We're dealing with some pretty significant manipulation - a president who doesn't not want to give up power so he creates a threat, an excuse to override term limits and turn himself into a despot. So in many ways, this plot is pretty predictable. We're meant to assume that the protagonist is a target solely because of her father. Instead its her own actions that brought her to the administrations attention and her father's identity only cements her as a target. Actually, her tweet is the weakest part of the plot. Sure it's cruel and insensitive but I found it hard to believe that it would gain her death threats in a matter of hours. So beleivibility issues aside, the messaging is pretty obvious - dangers of a life lived entirely online, protecting your identity, the ease of manipulating public perception a d online information. I didn't love the mixed perspectives. The messaging is relevant enough to make it worth a read.

I received an advance digital copy of this book from the authors, Kids Can Press and Netgalley.com. Thanks to all for the opportunity to read and review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

The Hive is a startling tale that hits very close to home. In an age where reputations are ripped apart for something posted online, here is a cautionary tale where you can be brutally dealt with by the court of public opinion.

A chilling take on humanity and how we treat each other and survive. An excellent read.

5 out of 5 stars. Highly recommended.

The core concept of this book was so intriguing and really cool and I just enjoyed it so much! Can't wait for our store copy to come in so I can recommend over Christmas