| Title | : | Chaos on CatNet (CatNet, #2) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1250165229 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781250165220 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 304 |
| Publication | : | First published April 27, 2021 |
| Awards | : | Lodestar Award (2022) |
When a mysterious entity starts hacking into social networks and chat rooms to instigate paranoia and violence in the real world, it’s up to Steph and her new friend, Nell, to find a way to stop it—with the help of their benevolent AI friend, CheshireCat.
Chaos on CatNet (CatNet, #2) Reviews
-
In this LGBTQ-friendly near-future dystopia, we pick up with Steph again as she is starting a new school. On her first day she meets Nell, an odd girl who’s been homeschooled until her mother vanished, and she was sent to live with her father and his new wife (and also a girlfriend). Nell, who has been raised to distrust everyone outside of her mother’s religious cult, is horrified to discover herself in this situation.
But Nell’s two biggest problems are finding her mother, and finding her girlfriend. She is especially terrified on her girlfriend’s behalf, fearing she’s been sent to one of those sinister “therapy” retreats meant to brainwash kids into their parents’ worldview.
Watching Steph and Nell form a friendship is a real pleasure, a contrast to the bleakness of the storyline. Steph asks CheshireCat to help find the girlfriend, but that proves disturbingly difficult.
Even more disturbing is the new “Pokemon Go” type game that all the kids seem to be into, asking kids to do “tricks” in the real world in order to gain game points. Some of these tricks become increasingly alarming, like “go steal a hammer from a store and leave it in a special place.”
Nobody seems to question this crossing from the game world to the real world, and as more people join the game, riots form. Another positive besides Steph and Nell’s friendship is the police in this restless, unsettling near future. Cheshire Cat, the AI (are there two?) and the teens and the dystopia all come together in a white-knuckle climax that kept me reading very late.
I loved the new characters (Steph’s grandmother especially) and the many ideas raised. It’s such a fast, absorbing read that the many thoughtful ideas buried in the story really come to the foreground in contemplating it afterward. Like, Kritzer doesn’t make the adults stupid in order to keep the kids in the foreground. Loved that--loved all the characterizations, including the villains in their unblinking anger.
I think it’s safe to say that if you liked the first book, you’ll like this one. At least I sure did—I hope we get to see Steph, Nell, Cheshire Cat, and all the others in further adventures.
Copy provided by NetGalley -
RTC.
-
Just as compulsively readable as the first book. I adored the new characters introduced in this installment as well as the chance to catch up with Steph, CheshireCat, and the gang.
Like the first one, the novel is amazingly good hearted, and the author’s note at the end, about ways 2020 unexpectedly mirrored and shaped the novel, was very touching.
Basically the only reason I knocked off a star is because I felt like the way the gang just stumbled into the plot at the very beginning was a little rushed and convenient.
Still highly entertaining and just dang good. -
4.5 stars. Steph's world opens up further with the resolution from book one. She's now in a city, living in an apartment, getting together with her girlfriend on weekends, and things feel semi-permanent! Also, she's discovering that she has more family than just her mother and father.
Then at her new school she meets Nell, a young woman from a cult who's been homeschooled and whose mother has disappeared. And Nell's girlfriend has also disappeared, adding to Nell's worries and stress.
Steph kind of takes Nell under her wing, and the two begin getting to know each other. While they do this, they, and many other people, start playing an online game, which tasks each player to perform a specific task, often something odd, and eventually increasingly alarming, for in-game points.
Also, ChesireCat, along with continuing to moderate CatNet, has its hands full helping search for Nell's mother and figure out who the other possible AI is.
There's a lot happening this time around, and things get progressively tense as the various story threads progress, but the story is still greatly enjoyable, and just made me happy.
I LOVE the friendships in this book, and how funny and supportive the many Clowder conversations are.
There are many more characters in this second CatNet book, and my favourite of these is Steph's grandmother with her warmth, humour, no nonsense attitude to the evolving situations, and her driving.
Naomi Kritzer also raises a lot of serious points along the way, such as privacy (again), parental responsibility, religion and what and who it “others”, tolerance, and family; the story zips along in such a way that the author is never heavy-handed when considering these ideas.
I totally enjoyed this book, and would love to spend more time in this world.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for this ARC in exchange for a review. -
4.5/5, rounded up because (a) it was such a compulsively readable book, even with its few minor issues, and (b) that author's note at the end was excellent.
Full review coming soon :) -
Ahoy there me mateys! I received this young adult sci-fi eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. So here be me honest musings . . .
This be the second full-length CatNet series novel by Naomi Kritzer. The first novel was based on
"Cat Pictures Please" which won the 2016 Locus and Hugo awards for best short story. Book one followed Steph who was on the run from her evil father. She is saved in the end by her friends from a social media site called CatNet and the AI in hiding called CheshireCat who runs the site.
I enjoyed the first book and was glad to hear that it was getting a sequel. Turns out that I liked this book even better. Steph is back and trying to live her life out in the open and gain some stability. At her new school, she makes a new friend, Nell. Nell's mother happens to be missing. And Nell happens to have grown up in a cult. The two friends join an online social media game. But something seems weird about it. Steph, Nell, and Cat find themselves trying to solve the mystery of Nell's mom and maybe also save the world.
What I loved about this one was how lovely the friendships are, how grown-ups are involved in saving the day, and of course CheshireCat. I really do enjoy getting to see Steph again. But I thought Nell was an excellent character. Watching her change during the course of the book was awesome. I also thought her family was a hoot. Old friends make an appearance and well as some new unexpected arrivals. The larger themes of privacy, family, and trauma are here too. This book was fun and I was glad to see what was evolving with the AI. I recommend this book but make sure ye read book one first!
So lastly . . .
Thank you Tor Teen!
Side note: I have to admit that the cover of this book in the series also doesn't thrill me. -
This is a sleeper hit like the first one. Absolutely fantastic, set ten minutes in the future. I read both of them in a single sitting. The pacing is a work of art. The kids are fun and realistic. The technology is real or terrifyly plausible. The cast is diverse AF. Minneapolis is handled with delicacy and intention. And I'm always a sucker for thrillers set where the enemy is your environment, and Minnesota is real darn cold in the winter.
-
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC of this book.
Actual Rating: 4.5/5
Video Series Review (non-Spoiler):
https://youtu.be/JxV0-zekvng
This was an amazing sequel in a series I already loved. The clowder continues to be my favorite part. I love this found family element and watching this team support each other and help brainstorm solutions for problems. I will say I found the plot of the first book more gripping than this one but I still had an amazing time and could read one of books in this series for a very long time. This is the type of wholesome but suspenseful YA that I love. I enjoy that the drama is not because of social tensions between characters but has to do with the outside world. This is exactly the type of YA sci-fi I would have devoured as a teenager and still love it today. -
2.5/5stars
Unfortunately, the trend of me disliking sequels continues :( I just didn't vibe with this one, i didn't like these characters and found them incredibly dumb and i couldn't understand their motivations AT ALL and also how they didn't realize their entire situation/these apps they were using were SO CREEPY. If it had been more self aware, that would have been FAR better. but the plot was very fun and fast paced and all the cult stuff was pretty interesting. -
This book was very distinct from Catfishing on CatNet, yet somehow simultaneously manages to feel very much the same. This is a good thing, given
how much I loved Catfishing on Catnet.
There’s much less focus on internet friendships in this one (the Clowder is still present, but they’re background) and much less focus on Steph’s relationship with Rachel (that’s taken as a given; Rachel’s support is automatic, and anyway she lives two hours away). Instead, Steph is enrolled in a magnet school in Minneapolis for students whose education has been unconventional, and she and her mother are both doing their best to adapt to a life not spent constantly on the run.
At school, Steph is immediately introduced to Nell. Nell was raised by a religious cult on a compound where they are prepping for the imminent apocalypse, and was kicked out when it was discovered that she was gay. Steph finds herself in the unfamiliar position of being the worldly, cool one instead of the weird outsider.
Meanwhile, CheshireCat is very interested/troubled by the possibility of a second AI.
The stakes are definitely higher than in the first book as we gradually find out what the second AI is up to. The two different plotlines - the AI plotline and the Nell plotline - come together pretty quickly in a way that, if I’m being honest, really strained my ability to suspend disbelief. It made the first half of the book a little bit of a challenge to get through, because I just thought it was far too contrived.
Around the midpoint, though, things came together in a way that made things make a lot more sense. I flew through the second half.
Even with this flaw, though, this book was, like Catfishing, a delight. It all comes down to the strength of the characters. Steph is as great as she was in the first book, and Nell is just about as good.
Another strong recommendation.
My blog -
I received this YA book from the publisher via NetGalley.
I read the first CatNet book as part of the Norton Award finalist packet last year. It gripped me from the start with its relatable young heroine Steph and fantastic hook: a teenage girl who has spent her life with her mom on the run from her abusive dad relies on an internet chat room for support--and when her dad finds her, discovers one of her dear online friends is a sentient AI (who happens to love cat pictures), and really relies on them to survive.
The sequel starts out slower as the stakes aren't quite as high. Steph's dad is in prison. Her mom is trying to make a normal life for them in Minneapolis. When Steph starts at a new school, she finds the kids are really into new phone games that ask them to complete tasks in real life--tasks that weirdly match the kids own lives and environments. Even her new friend Nell, recently moved in with her dad after leaving a cult, plays a Christian type of phone game. Steph and her AI friend soon suspect that these aren't mere games. Another AI may be involved, and this one isn't content to just stare at cat pictures.
Even though the pace was slower, the circumstances were still intriguing, and the tension does escalate. I zoomed through the book in all of two days. A few trigger warnings: the book does address abusive family and extremist religious sects, but the book is also about hope and support. Really, the importance of found family is a prevalent theme. At one point, the teenagers need a refuge, and they go to a house with a rainbow flag, and get just the support they need.
Beyond the characters, the book brings up intriguing near-future science fiction questions about sentience, AI, the power that phones have over our lives, and even what the future of policing may look life. Good subjects are everyone to ponder these days. -
Excellent follow-up to
Catfishing on CatNet. Did that one end with the suspicion that there's another AI somewhere? Turns out that there is, and it has an agenda that may or may not be harmless. Turns out there's a lot of harm being planned, and Steph and her friends, notably the Cheshire Cat AI, have to find out what's happening. At her new school, Steph meets Nell, who's been living in an apocalyptic cult and has problems with that (the cult is anti-gay and her girlfriend is missing). Steph's and Nell's questions intersect, and things get wild. Excellently done. IMO, it is necessary to read the first book first. -
Great fun reading this book. I was born in Minneapolis where much of the story takes place and I like much of how the city was integrated and upgraded throughout the tale. I like cats as well and my cat Val spent much of my reading time curled up next to me. I started out reading this on audio assist but could not get oriented as to whose point of view was being narrated so I switch to large kindle print instead and that went much better. There were a few spots where the AI should have been a bit smarter and more prepared so I have deducted a half-point in the book rating (4.5), still this
rounds up to a 5. Uncle Hugo's SF bookstore did burn down and (like Naomi Kritzer)
I am also hoping it gets rebuilt with a rocket ship out front. The word Chaos has always had appeal to me - I always think of the bad guys as being from Kaos - Maxwell Smart's enemies who were so disruptive to our democracy of truth, justice, and the American way ((or was that Superman's motto?)) To bring politics into my world interpretation 'Trump is the leader of Kaos and should be banished along with all his cronies into the Phantom Zone prison in the Parallel Dimension.' -
First book finished for book bingo 2022! Lots of fun but still pretty anxiety inducing at times. Though I kinda felt jibbed that the first book's preview of it comes in the middle of the book as I kept waiting for the inevitable heist-esque sequence.
THAT CLIFFHANGER THO
Book Bingo 2022: LGBTQIA+, No Ifs/Ands/Buts, Family Matters, Revolution, maybe mental health (moreso in book 1 than in book 2) -
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Chaos on CatNet (CatNet #2) by Naomi Kritzer was one of my most anticipated reads of April and luckily it mostly lived up to my expectations. 2019's Catfishing on CatNet was such a pleasant surprise that I was really excited to for this sequel. I honestly don't know why this isn't on more peoples radar because this YA near-future sci-fi thriller series hits the right notes. Whatever the case, it really deserves to become a sleeper hit. Tonally, this time around the story is a bit different than it's predecessor, but it's just so compulsively readable and I can't resist the world and characters Kritzer has created. Plus, there's a cool AI character that really enjoys a nice cat photo. I can't wait to read more from Kritzer in the future. -
Thank you to NetGalley, Naomi Kritzer, and Tor Teen for the opportunity to read Chaos on CatNet in exchange for an honest review.
This is the second book in the CatNet series. While it is recommended to read the first novel, Catfishing on CatNet, to get a feel for Steph and her family, Chaos on CatNet has a wholesome plot of its own and can probably be read with little confusion.
Steph's father is in jail. She and her mom can finally live somewhere permanently, though the stress of always being on the run still affects their daily actions. When Steph meets another girl named Nell at her new school, they become quick friends. Nell show Steph an app called the Catacombs, which send players on quests and actually know their location if they went out to do what the app told them too. Steph and CheshireCat, Steph's AI friend and the main runner of CatNet, believe the Catacombs--and some other apps that have similar quests--are being run by an AI, but where did this AI come from and are the requests getting to be a bit malicious?
When an old colleague of Steph's mom's appears, once thought to be dead, Steph investigates if this is in fact that same person and if he may have tried to make a copy of CheshireCat for his own means. Chaos ensues as the requests from Catacombs (and the other apps) start to become chaotic and violent.
Meanwhile, Nell's mom is missing. She was raised on a strange religious cult that finds Nell being a lesbian not okay. Nell's girlfriend has gone missing, and Steph turns to CheshireCat to try and find the missing girl. The religious cult seems to be behind the Catacombs and the actions of people following the apps orders without question.
Steph calls on her own girlfriend to come and help solve the mystery. Between new friends, religious cults, chaos across apps, and trying to stop terrible things from happening across the United States, Steph and CheshireCat have quite the problem on their plate.
This book was great, just like the first one, though I certainly wasn't expecting the amount of religious aspects to it. I do appreciate the very open LGBTQ+ elements in this novel. The interesting question of an AI being sentient and the morality of them being thought of as a person is subtle, but certainly comes up, a near-future topic that takes a lot of thinking. I also really liked the afterward and the inspirations the author had for the setting and how Minneapolis has changed over the course of drafting this novel. A great book for a young adult audience, a fun and unexpected sequel, and a trove of subtleties relating to contemporary social issues. A powerful novel indeed. -
Steph and her mother are no longer on the run. Steph's father is locked up in Boston, awaiting trial with no bail. They're living in Minneapolis, and Steph is finally enrolled in a high school she can expect to graduate from. She's enrolled under her real name, with all the school information that she has, and telling the truth about why it's so spotty.
She also has a new friend, a classmate named Nell, who has her own interesting history. She's been homeschooled until now, because her mother joined a cult. Well, a series of cults, but the latest one is especially extreme, and is run by someone called the Elder, whom no one ever sees.
Nell's grandparents, devout Christians but not cult members, have allowed Nell and her mother to live with them--until Nell's mother disappears, and abandons her car not far away. When the police conclude she disappeared under her own power, Nell's grandmother concludes that maybe Nell is better off with her father, even though her father isn't exactly grandmother's idea of a great Christian.
To be clear about that last, her father has a wife, and both he and his wife have girlfriends, and they all live together in a large house in Minneapolis. At first we have only Nell's impression of them, and Nell doesn't know what to make of them, beyond being rather judgmental about their lax attitude towards household chores.
Nell and Steph get invited into a new social media site called Mischief Elves, and Nell invites Steph to join a social network popular with cult members--the Catacombs. It's not long before Steph starts to notice some creepy and disturbing aspects of both sites, and even more disturbing resemblances between them.
The pranks the Mischief Elves organize get more and more dangerous. The Catacombs is also organizing strange activities that don't seem to fit.
Then they discover the Mischief Elves are organizing supplies of explosives and potential weapons for the Catacombs people to collect.
Meanwhile, CheshireCat has been receiving messages from what he thinks is another AI like himself, which he hasn't responded to because he doesn't trust its approach.
What's going on? And will Minneapolis survive?
It's twisty and interesting and a lot of fun Recommended.
I bought this audiobook. -
Again a wonderfully quirky story. 😍
At first the whole backstory of Nell was so insane and outrageously over-the-top - an aggressively religious mother who jumps one cult after another and a father in a happy 4-sided polyamorous relationship. As two different stories it wouldn’t amaze me so much but I really-really want to know how two so very different people got together and even had a child together. It would have been an interesting side story but sadly we did not get any information.😅
Yet again I enjoyed Steph’s perseverance and wit in coping with the most bizarre situations. CheshireCat was great as well, they are just really nice and fuzzy character. There are quite a few new characters who are fun and interesting but in this series almost all the characters are quite sweet and supportive. 😊
I have a feeling that perhaps this is not the end and we’ll have more books in the future. At least I hope so!😊😊 -
Chaos on CatNet threw me into such a book drought that it's taken starting and setting aside three books to figure out what I could possibly read next. It somehow managed to up the stakes from Catfishing on CatNet while preserving so many of the things I loved about the first book.
I definitely feel like I benefitted from not knowing much about the premise so this review won't have a blurb of the plot. I will say it picks up shortly after where Catfishing on CatNet left off but includes a helpful, short recap at the beginning for people like me who immediately forget the plot of a book immediately after finishing it.
Kritzer continues to miraculously combine both a compelling story and thought-provoking questions about the role of technology in our daily lives. Similarly to Catfishing on CatNet, this book took a little bit of time to fully grab my attention. Once it did though, it became absolutely impossible to put down.
This is science fiction at its best -- presenting the issues of our current moment in a way that feels both fresh and urgent. I know I will be thinking about Chaos on CatNet for a long time. Fingers crossed there will be more books in the series -- I could read about ChesireCat doing basically anything and be completely content.
C/W: -
This book in the series really ramps up the potential damage inflicted upon society, by its own people through coordinated misinformation.
-
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/chaos-on-catnet-by-naomi-kritzer/
Sequel to the very entertaining Catfishing on CatNet, which won the 2020 Lodestar Award. Takes the story and most of the same characters in quite a new direction with a second rather less cute AI, a riff on Pokemon Go, and a slightly divergent timeline where Minneapolis and St Paul have successfully reformed their police as demanded by Black Lives Matter. Lots of good stuff, plenty for YA readers, and older readers, to chew on. -
Just as compelling was the first book, with even higher stakes.
Some aspects felt pretty obvious to me pretty early on, but it was still a nice mystery/thriller with a near future premise that I'd be happy to see realized.
The cult bits were sufficiently unnerving, and I do rather hope that a future book might examine the outcome of that part of the plot.
The author's note at the end broke me though. -
While I didn't love this quite as much as the first book, it's still a really good read. I appreciated all the diversity of lgbtq+ characters, including lesbian, bisexual, nonbinary, and ace. The friendships were definitely the strongest element of story and kept me fully engaged, even when the plot wobbled a bit. This author knows how to write a gripping book, and draws you in from the beginning. Although YA sci-fi thrillers aren't a genre I read a lot of, I'll definitely try the next installment in this series, if there is one.
-
I begged for there to be a second book after reading Catfishing on CatNet and my dreams were answered, almost as if CheshireCat was listening in on my conversation. (If only I were so lucky!) So we're back with the team. Not much time has passed since the ending of the first book. Enough time for Steph's mum to have made some progress on her therapy and for Steph to start at yet another new school. Only this time it's under her actual name, with all of her transcripts and with nothing to hide. Her dad is in jail and they're no longer on the run.
Things never appear like they're going to be quiet around poor Steph, though. On her first day in her new school she meets Nell who has been homeschooled up until the point her mother disappeared. Although their family always seems to have been religious (on the mother's side at least), for the past two years they've been in a cult. But since her mother's disappeared Nell has been sent to live with her father (who walked out on them when she was young). He now lives with a new wife, who has a girlfriend, and he (Nell's dad) has a girlfriend himself. They all live together, so Nell now has a family of four adults in a nice polyamory family-unit. Despite Nell's cult-religious upbringing she has a girlfriend herself, so I'm not entirely sure why this initially seems to disgust Nell when she's telling Steph about it - perhaps it's just in the way of 'eugh adults'.
Either way, Nell seems to have baggage. It also appears as though her girlfriend (who was also part of the cult) has disappeared, and she fears she's been sent to one of those illegal but probably-still-exist conversion therapy retreats under the guise of being 'therapeutic Christian boarding schools' or something. This is something that Steph asks CheshireCat to look into for them, but even our favourite AI is having trouble tracking her down... which, if you know what it's able to do certainly says a lot for where Nell's girlfriend must be stashed.
There are also Pokemon Go style games and websites popping up more and more around the place - the kind that track where you are and give real-world quests, though as the book goes on they get more sinister. Instead of 'walk 12k to hatch an egg to get a low-IV boring pokemon', you get 'walk into this hardware store, steal a hammer, leave it in this box for someone else to pick up' and that kind of thing. And then riots and mass group activities start happening, where, at least, we see a version of the police that the author hopes could be reality someday... but more on that later.
It also seems as though there's another AI out there, one who is contacting CheshireCat, saying that they know who and what they are. This is the main crux of the book, and although everything ties in together (as well as into events from the first book, so you'd really have to read that one before coming into this one) is all about how we function as people - whether we are hardwired to be a certain way or if we grow organically, made of things around us. Even with AI this is the case, such as CheshireCat liking photos of cats rather than videos of dogs, and that sort of thing.
We see most of the cast of the first book with a bonus introduction of a grandmother Steph never knew existed. The bonus about this book being set 10+ years into the future is that even the older generation have pretty incredible skills - this grandmother can steal cars and was one heavily into drag racing, so she's their ticket in and out of some fairly tight situations.
Overall I found this book bleaker than the first. The riots, the religion, and everyone willingly doing absolutely stupid things because an app tells you to and so forth... it was all a bit depressing. I have no doubts that this was its intended impact, and it's not as though the first book was all sunshine and kittens - it has a father trying to steal a child and guns and things after all, but this book... I don't know. It hit a little too close to home, I suppose. This series certainly does make you stop and think for a while about all the tech we surround ourselves with, how easily we click allow to give various apps access to microphones, photos, app data and so on...
But one of the positives was the police force. In the afterword the author references the tragic and disturbing death of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. To that end, as this book is set in the future, the author has given us a police force she hopes they can work towards - one that isn't threatening, one that seeks to help rather than hinder, and so forth. One of the interactions show them trying to get Steph a warmer coat when she finds herself out at night in freezing conditions, for instance. Seeing speculative fiction edging us towards this future to help make it a reality is something I want to see more of, certainly.
I demolished this book in a day so I clearly couldn't put it down and I needed to know what happened next. I also would love to see a third book. I just hope that Steph, Rachel, Nell, Glenys and CheshireCat can all go somewhere nice. Maybe it's time they attend a convention and save the Concom from something. That'd be awesome. -
Stayed up late to finish. Like Catfishing on Catnet, it's got good teen characters, good representation, good plotting and plenty of humor. The portrait of a future Minneapolis was hopeful, and felt like a balm.
-
Really enjoyable. I appreciate so much the way Kritzer writes about tech and especially the subtle way app and permissions safety is woven in as part of the story.
I also wish so much for the MPD of this book, a true department of public safety. -
Maybe 3.5 stars for a somewhat rushed ending, but extra points for topicality.
-
Terrific sequel to the lovely CatFishing on CatNet. Steph and her growing circle of friends and family are, once again, fighting for stakes both personal and far greater. And, once again, using the powers of friendship and queerness and smarts and resourcefulness. And a nearly all-poweful friendly AI, of course.
-
This was a great sequel that kept my attention the whole time.
