Chaos on CatNet

March 1, 2021
Shortly after the events of the first book, Catfishing on CatNet (2019), Steph and AI CheshireCat uncover a dangerous social media plot. Steph's father is now behind bars; Steph and her mother are no longer living on the run and have settled in a not-too-distant future Minneapolis marked by positive social changes brought on by the protests of 2020. At her new school, she befriends Nell, a fellow new student who, after her mother's disappearance, has been sent away from her fundamentalist, end-times-predicting cult to live with her father in his polyamorous household. Her father's second wife and their respective girlfriends are positively portrayed while Nell, who joins Steph and CheshireCat as a narrator, grapples with the attitudes and biases she's been taught. A fellow student recruits Steph and Nell into an app-based game that assigns personalized tasks; Nell recognizes its interface as being similar to one used by her religious sect. While attempting to rescue Nell's girlfriend, who has gone missing, Nell and Steph piece together a plot concerning someone who is manipulating social media apps and games in order to incite real-life violence. The who and why greatly raise the stakes. The storyline raises chilling questions about online manipulation, surveillance, and free will. Although the main human characters are White, the racial, gender, and sexuality diversity of Minneapolis is shown through numerous named side characters. A tightly plotted thriller with scary what-if implications. (author's note) (Thriller. 13-adult)

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