The Hive

Not my cup of tea at all I'm afraid. Very violent and so implausible as to be ridiculous. Having said that, I did quite enjoy the first half which focussed on the close-knit friendship of a group of four young women as they support each other through the trials and tribulations of the teenage years and beyond.

I don't think this book is really aimed at people of my age so don't necessarily let it put you off, especially if you are of an age where social media plays a large part in your life.

Charlotte Goodwin gives the Instagram public a choice:- should she murder her ex-boyfriend live online? This is the climax that the book is leading up to. The first part of the book catalogues the circumstances leading up to this moment.

This was a great (if somewhat violent) premise for a book. The plot is well thought out and well constructed, complete with a twist in the tale at the end. The strength of the friendship between the four friends should be a lesson to us all. The style of writing made it easy to read and I really enjoyed the first half of the book in particular (things got a bit gruesome and convoluted in the second half). I am far too old to have any interest in Instgram or other social media platforms and as this book is heavily reliant on this technology, I am clearly not the target audience. It is therefore to the author’s credit that she captured my attention. Overall it was an easy read, verging on escapism.

There were however a few things that I thought were less successful. I didn’t find the plot either convincing or plausible. Were we even supposed to? I’m not entirely sure. I had a similar problem with Charlotte. Somehow her character development didn’t
quite resonate with her actions and I remain unconvinced that she really cared as much about losing the children as she seemed to.
The violent nature of the plot took me out of my comfort zone in the second half when reality seemed to be suspended and the heavy reliance on social media was also not something I could relate to.

I’m not sure I would really recommend this book, certainly not to people of my age anyway. Although I thought it was just about good enough to be enjoyable I can’t honestly see many of my friends reacting in a similar fashion. However it may well elicit a very different response from a younger audience.

A terrific Big Bang beginning, with a public vote by social media to determine whether main character Charlotte should kill her lying cheat ex boyfriend.

Sadly let down by poorly developed and unengaging characters who behave badly yet I think we are meant to root for them because of some notion of a feminist take on the revenge thriller?

Totally unbelievable and superficial, despite difficult subject matter- child abuse, miscarriage, dysfunctional family relationships. Charlotte is seriously disturbed and in need of help so I'm not sure what message Scarlett Brade wants us to take from the ending. I'm not the target audience being old and cynical but with a strong sense of right and wrong and still (some) faith in the rule of law.

On the positive side the novel will generate good discuss at our next Book Group meeting. Readable certainly but in a 'Can't look away from a car crash' way, too cringeworthy for guilty pleasure reading. A good indictment of celebrity culture and the dark side of social media.

Great idea for a revenge thriller. Reading the first chapter of this book I was hooked, pace was fast , engaging me with the premise. Found it to be a novel idea.
But as the story continued sadly the rest of the book did not live up to its initial promise.
It unraveled as it continued with poorly developed characters, clunky dialogue and left me feeling I did not care if any of them came out of it at the end.
I can't say this book is for everyone and unfortunately I am one of them that it's not for.
I can see what the author was aiming for but the story did not hit the mark and fulfill its initial potential.

The premise of the novel is intriguing: a girl starts a livestream telling the world what her ex has done, and they get to vote on whether he should live or die. True, it's a bit overly dramatic and feels like a Black Mirror rip-off, but it's an exciting start to the story.

Unfortunately, it goes absolutely nowhere. After the prologue, the novel goes back a year to tell the story and the vote isn't mentioned again until nearly the end of the book, where we reach the livestreaming scene. Even then, the vote is irrelevant; with very little build-up we're told it's a tie and Charlotte makes her own decision. If you took out the vote, the plot would progress in exactly the same way. All that we'd lose is the hook at the beginning.

This disappointment about the vote could have been okay if the rest of the story was good, but, unfortunately, there's very little else here that works. The plot moves faster than a soap opera, with Charlotte falling in love within a few barely-described dates, so head-over-heels that she totally misses the line of red flags longer than a communist parade. More significantly, when she gets pregnant it's completely obvious that her boyfriend has no interest in their future children (he refuses to speak to her or allow her to announce her pregnancy) but she continues to believe that he loves them. I can only assume that Brade is trying to make a point about "blind love," but the only result is that Charlotte looks like a naïve idiot.

And even that would be partly okay if Charlotte was a naïve ingenue, but the novel goes out of its way to throw her and her friends in all kids of nasty situations. Within the opening chapter we're told that, as a child, Charlotte dropped a brick on her friend's abusive dad and paralysed him, as a teenager blackmailed her other friend's rapist uncle, and now, as an adult, is trying to help her drug-addicted friend regain custody of her children. Within the novel itself, Charlotte kills multiple people in cold blood. And yet, somehow, we're expected to still be on her side. Yes, some of what happens to her is horrible, and I had sympathy with her at points, but by the story's end she's just a terrible person.

Overall, if you're looking for a quick, dramatic thriller, THE HIVE might entertain you for an afternoon. In any other situation, though, it's just not worth it. The writing is poor, the characters are all horrible people, and the plot will give you whiplash. Yes, the hook is intriguing, but the rest fails to live up to it.

3.5🌟

(book club read!)

I was really hooked on The Hive to begin with and I found great enjoyment reading from a protagonist's point of view who is totally deluded and unhinged at times.

I feel like this book should have triggers warnings at the start, the devestating of Charlotte's accident was quite tricky to read.

The novel has a strong concept, however the ending is unbelievable. The reader is forced to accept that the characters can achieve things without asking any questions or experiencing any implicactions. The common saying 'too good to be true' comes to mind..