A chaotic ride full of friendship and cat-loving AIs, Kitzer succeeds in creating a sophomore novel. After Steph and her friends sent her abusive father to jail, the adventure continues with a series of strange messages. Could they be from the friend who saved them and the AI in the previous book? What is with Steph's new classmate and the cult she was taken from? Is the Mischief Elves sites another strange AI program? They put on their Nancy Drew hats and with the power of friendship (and cats), find themselves drawn in another dangerous game as very real violence bleeds into their world.

A wonderful, wonderful follow up.

This book is like a warm hug!!!!

I first encountered Naomi Kritzer’s writing when her short story “Cat Pictures, Please” was nominated (and later won) the Hugo Award. It was just delightful in every way and I cannot recommend it enough. It’s about a benevolent artificial intelligence that just wants to help people and to look at pictures of cats.

Later, Ms. Kritzer took this premise and turned it into the award winning Catfishing on Catnet, in which the AI hangs out with a bunch of teens in a chat room and helps out when the protagonist is pursued by her stalker of a father. It is a delight and deserves every award it won. (And more!)

Ms. Kritzer follows it up with this novel, Chaos on Catnet, which follows up on some threads left hanging in the last novel, specifically, is there another AI out there and is it benevolent?
I was so thrilled when Tor Teen and NetGalley approved me for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Steph, the protagonist of the last novel, is back l, and she and her mother are more stable this time around. A new character is also introduced, Nell, who has just left a cult and is having a hard time adjusting. Once again, the author creates a fast paced thriller suitable for a teen audience that celebrates found family and asserting one’s identity.

I predict this book will be on the Lodestar ballot next year - it’ll certainly be on mine!

I love Kritzer’s Catnet stories intensely, and I have since I read the very first one, the short story “Cat Pictures Please,” which you absolutely need to go read RIGHT NOW if you haven’t read it yet. It’s the story of a sentient artificial intelligence who just wants two things: to use all the tools of the near-future internet to help humans live their best life, and to look at cat pictures. She followed it up with the YA novel Catfishing on CatNet, and now there’s a second novel which is the best yet. In this one, Steph, no longer on the run and trying to build a stable life in Minneapolis with her mother, makes friends with Nell, who has been “rescued” against her will from a conservative apocalypse cult by her polyamorous father and his partners. They notice that the fun new app sweeping their high school is eerily similar to the app the cult members use, and both apps are giving their members “missions” that are looking more and more sinister. Is there another, less friendly AI manipulating their community? Why? And how will they stop it? This book has a great blend of big-hearted love, humor, and car chases, and my only wish is that Krizer is already working on a third book.

Sequel to Catfishing on CatNet, although it can probably be read as a stand-alone. Steph and her mother have settled in Minneapolis after running for their whole lives. On her first day at school, Steph meets another new girl, and is introduced to two new online games and a deepening mystery. CheshireCat, the AI who runs CatNet, has been contacted by someone who may be another independent AI, and who may have a sinister--and dangerous--agenda.

In addition to the intriguing mystery and suspense, the well-drawn characters, many of the LGBTQIA, and the near-future worldbuilding make for a rich read.

Highly recommended.

Well, I requested this book on NetGalley, and then had to go find the first book! Didn’t realise this was a sequel.
Pro tip: if you, like me, didn’t realise that Chaos on CatNet was the SECOND book, stop reading this and go read Catfishing on CatNet first. Don’t worry, I’ll still be here, and I will be reviewing them both below :-).


Catfishing on CatNet was a pretty good book. Our MC is on the run from her father, a convicted arsonist. She lives with her mother, and they move. A. Lot. Like, multiple times in a year. Basically, if Steph’s Mum gets a feeling that they have been noticed - like when Steph used to cause trouble in school - or if she just felt they had been in one place too long, they would up and move. Steph has no social media, no fancy touch screen phone. Her best friends are digital - people she found online (using her basic laptop) in a chatroom, called CatNet. Here she can talk to people without fear of her father finding her, and make connections with people that aren’t uprooted within a few months. Things begin to get intense when Steph discovers something unusual about one of her chatroom friends, and it begins to seem as though someone is tracking her in real life.

Catfishing on CatNet has great LGBT+ rep, including use of neo-pronouns, and it’s done in a way where it’s just normal. (I have a friend, who is gay, and the other day for the first time, they were talking to someone they were not yet out to and said “oh, my (same gender)friend is into that!”, and shocked themselves a little, as they referred to their same-gender partner in the same casual way hetero people do.) The point of that wee story was that we need to get t a place where it doesn’t matter if it’s a homo or hetero relationship, it should just be a RELATIONSHIP. And this book was really good at that. They didn’t erase the very real struggles that people who don’t conform to the hetero-norm face, but instead gave a safe space where it was normal to be gay, straight, ace, enby.

The world these books are set is ours - but a few years into the future, so things are mostly recogniseable, but there are also robots. Like, robot robots. Like robots that “teach” “sex ed” (yes, BOTH sets of inverted commas were necessary here, the teaching is awful and the sex ed is worse!). Our savvy online friend group hack the sex ed robot and provide some genuine sex ed that is actually helpful!
Catfishing on CatNet becomes somewhat of a thriller as our MC and her friends try to uncover the identity and true account of who is after her and why. It’s pretty good, I enjoyed the overall storyline . The main thing I found a little jarring was that the MC is meant to be 16ish years old, and she reads a lot younger.

Chaos on CatNet picks up not long after the previous book ends. Steph and her mother have moved, but she is still in contact with her physical friends from their last location, for the first time ever. We fall into a plot quickly with Nell, a physical friend Steph makes within the first few pages. There’s a lot of action after that, including a clu, a rogue AI, a supervillain base in a robot-filled theme park… it’s engaging and enjoyable, if a little rushed. The ending felt to me a little like too much happened off page - that is, our MC was doing something and someone behind the scenes was saving the world and we didn’t actually see it happen? Not a huge issue, just a little disappointing for me personally.

I will make a note here about the polyamory in Chaos. Nell has an extended family situation: she is living with her father; her step-mother (father’s wife); her father’s girlfriend, and her step-mother’s girlfriend (I think!). It’s nice to see it portrayed from the POV of the adults as just a thing they do and it’s normal. Nell refers to the women as Thing One, Two and Three, a la Cat in the Hat, and I can see how people could be offended by this. Personally, as there is character growth (and a cult mindset to break) I’m okay with it, as it’s simply someone's reaction to something they are uncomfortable with, and that someone is a child. That’s not to say children get a pass, but simply that they DO change as they learn more.

Content warnings: LGBT+, LGBT+ phobia, violence, domestic violence, language (?), conservative views.

Overall Rating: 4 stars

With "Catfishing on CatNet" winning both the Edgar and the Lodestone awards this year, it hasn't been on the library shelf for months. Even without having been able to read its predecessor, "Chaos" was a completely entertaining read with good characters, a nuggety mystery to solve, heart-racing suspense, and a supervillain lair in a robot-staffed amusement park. And explosions. The characters and necessary details from book one were explained in ways that avoided being tedious, and help the reader jump in and get invested.
Hat-tips for frank discussions of neurodivergence, and each of the well-prepared and savvy teens had valid reasons for having the character traits that would save them -- it wasn't just "the way they are", it was the way their lives had made them. Several characters have they/them pronouns and many sexual orientations have representation, with the two main characters having lesbian partners. The book was also being edited during the Floyd riots, and since the setting is Minneapolis, the author made sure this near-future story showed the effects of those dramatic changes.
The best thing about this pre-apocalyptic tale was that it exploited the blindspots people have, either willingly or through utter lack of curiosity or self-examination in order to accomplish the goal of mass chaos. It's a foolproof plan, because humans can be fools, and it made the story both realistic and chilling. Highly recommend.

Although I haven't read the first book (Catfishing on Catnet), I did find this YA novel intriguing.
from description: "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 is a YA thriller with some genuine considerations about social media/the internet and its ability to influence hundreds of thousands of people. As I was reading it, we were all watching social media and news media as the election approached, and even now, in the aftermath of the election, we see the influence of the media for manipulating emotions.

Pretty scary the way those with an agenda can influence hundreds of thousands of people to violence. In the book and in real life, this happens.

At the same time, the internet does have many positive benefits. Friendships with people you may never meet in person, inspiration concerning hobbies and interests, and finding acceptance and support among like-minded people. Steph has this support among her friends.

An AI with human qualities is still a long way in the future, if ever; but the ability of people to use the internet and social media in a destructive fashion has been troublesome for a long time. Even more so during all the problems 2020 has presented.

Because I think the novel is of current interest, I'm reviewing it now rather than scheduling it for later.

NetGalley/MacMillan-Tor/Forge

YA/Thriller/Science, Tech. April 27, 2021. Print length: 304 pages.

Such a great book! Thanks NetGalley publisher and author for this copy!

I loved the characters. The friendship in this awesome read.
The writing was great. Charactes are easy to follow.
I really enjoyed reading this one.

Thank you NetGalley for this amazing book!

I read book 1 as an ARC as well and was super excited that I got picked for this book as well. This book, and series, does a great job at portraying sentient AI in a fun and easy to understand way.

This book is a quick and easy read. The characters are easy to follow along and to root for. The ideas portrayed in these books are very realistic but are portrayed in a way that make them easy to understand for anyone.

I love the themes of loyalty and friendship throughout the book. Also the themes of perseverance and dedication.

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.

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.