Book Review

Abagi, Karen
December 14, 2016

English, Period 4

Nerve

Jeanne Ryan

Young Adult Fiction, Techno- thriller, and Adventure novel

294 pages

No Award

               The novel Nerve is about Venus, known as Vee. Vee is a seventeen-year-old junior in high school. “She is the quiet girl behind the curtain”. Vee decided to try the online game, Nerve, when she was not allowed to go to a party due to parental restriction. Nerve is an online game similar to truth or dare but without the truth, where players get paid to play and watchers pay to watch.  She was put on restriction after her parents assumed she tried to asphyxiate herself. Her dare was simple, all she had to do was go to “Gotta-Hava-Java” and pour a cold cup of water on herself and say “cold water makes me hot”. As simple as it seemed it was the hardest thing to do. Once she completed the dare, she posted it online and it became viral. People wanted more of her, but she refused to go on. The next day at school, Vee sees Sydney (Syd), her supermodel best friend, kissing her crush, Matthew. Even though Vee knew Syd was supposed to kiss Matthew during the school play, she kissed him longer than needed, or so Vee thought. Vee’s furious mind made her think that Syd kissed him longer on propose because Vee tried Nerve and was the center of attention for once instead of Sydney (but really, in the end it turns out Matthew was the one that kisses Sydney longer). After the play, Vee was supposed to go out for the first time since garage incident last November, but she was too angry at Syd and Matthew to go. So, instead of partying she decided to officially join Nerve. Her first official dare was to go back to Gotta-Hava-Java and meet her partner, Ian. Ian had dark hair and eyes and facial features chiseled from the heavens. Once Vee and Ian completed their dares, the watchers had them team up. As the night went on, the dares became more dangerous, the prizes grew larger, and their chemistry for each other expanded. In a blink of an eye Vee and Ian find themselves in the finales, held at gunpoint by their competitors. Wanting to quit, Vee and Ian are forced to keep playing, otherwise the other players would shoot them. Vee and Ian escaped by breaking down the wall and running away. Even though the games were over, Vee and Ian’s lives changed. They were followed everywhere they went by watchers. The watchers left them with no privacy. They were forced to stay home some days, just so they wouldn’t be bombarded with flashing cameras. After the weeks went by, the watchers died down and their lives were finally going back to normal, until they got a text from Nerve. It wrote “ I’ll never get tired of watching you, and can’t wait to see play again.”

           If I could describe Nerve in three words it would be suspenseful, engaging, and amazing. After watching the movie I was convinced that the book would be just as great, but I was wrong. The book wasn’t just great, it was phenomenal! It’s the type of book you could reread over and over again. There was a mix of humor, romance, and adventure. I feel as if the novel teaches kids to be careful of what they do online, because sometimes there are consequences. One quote I liked from Nerve was “ we've learned an interesting rule about fame. Those who seem desperate for it are the people that others least want to see." I think this quote means that celebrities don't alway want the fame but they get it because people feed off of it Ordinary people, on the other hand, are yearning for it, but don't receive it because nobody wants to watch them. So in a way, the novel is saying that privacy is a blessing, but so is fame in its own ways. Ten out of ten I would recommend this book. Do you have the nerve to read Nerve, because I dare you.