Nerve (Movie Tie-In) by Jeanne Ryan | eBook

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up—Vee has spent her teen years content to live behind the scenes until it appears that her best friend is making a move on her crush. Angry and hurt, she decides to show her classmates that there is more to her than they think. She competes in the online truth-or-dare game of NERVE, in which contestants are offered increasingly tempting prizes to take ever-more-difficult dares. The people who run the game personalize each new round and successfully up the ante by accessing contestants' online This Is Me pages (think Facebook on steroids) and by keeping track of the online chatter as teens watch their friends compete. The dares, at first merely socially embarrassing, quickly escalate into dangerous and cruel pranks. Vee convinces herself that she can get out at any time, but she has been paired with handsome Ian, who always manages to talk her into going another round. When they are chosen to compete in the final round, the prizes, heretofore material goods, become life-changing opportunities that Vee and her partner can't pass up. They find themselves pitted against five other players in a high-stakes game. If any one of them forfeits, all will lose their prizes, and some of the finalists will stop at nothing to prevent that from happening. Ryan questions the nature of entertainment and explores the concept of privacy in a world of increasingly sophisticated social media. Teens will find themselves drawn in by the story's possibilities, and unNERVEd by its outcome. Give this to Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games fans (Scholastic, 2008).Cary Frostick, Mary Riley Styles Public Library, Falls Church, VA

Publishers Weekly

Reeling from a recent personal crisis, high school junior Vee is tired of designing costumes and applying makeup backstage—she wants to be in the spotlight for once. Playing against her sensible character, Vee tries out for Nerve, a racy reality game show fanatically watched online, on phones, and on TV. Debut author Ryan's view of the ridiculousness and pervasiveness of contemporary fame-obsessed culture is not subtle. After Vee pours water over her head while wearing a white top at a coffee shop and yelling, "Cold water makes me hot," she moves on to additional humiliating dares along with her Nerve partner, Ian, all broadcast live to Nerve's paying customers. Ryan's story is thought-provoking and unsettling, though even with the adrenaline rush the game provides, Vee's motivation to keep playing—taking on increasingly sexual and dangerous tasks—requires a stretch of the imagination. While the ending goes off with a bang and a twist, the theme of doing anything for attention and money (and then expecting privacy) plays out heavily. Ages 14–up. Agent: Ammi-Joan Paquette, Erin Murphy Literary Agency. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

Praise for Nerve:

“Teens will find themselves drawn in by the story’s possibilities, and unNERVEd by its outcome. Give this to Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games fans.” School Library Journal

"The commentary on today's life-as-public-spectacle society is sound. The pacing is relentless, and readers will find themselves flipping madly to the very last page." -Kirkus Reviews

"Readers will remain tightly keyed into questions about what is going to happen." -Booklist

“Ryan’s story is thought-provoking and unsettling…the ending goes off with a bang and a twist.” Publishers Weekly

"An original, page-turning novel that offers a slice of pop culture that gives a whole new meaning to the trendy, reality-television genre." -VOYA

LA Times Fall 2012 roundup of young adult fiction

VOYA - Tanya Paglia

Vee is not used to being in the spotlight. In fact, the background is more like it. She is the makeup artist for her high school’s drama club. Her friend, Sydney, is the star of the show, along with a boy that Vee is crushing on, but he likes Sydney instead. Vee decides to come out of her shell to prove she is not just a behind-the-scenes kind of girl. A popular reality game show called Nerve is looking for potential contestants. All that is required is completing dares on the spot while being filmed by a partner and uploading them immediately for “watchers” to view. The prizes are enticing and grow bigger and better with each dare. The masterminds behind this “game,” however, seem to know too much about Vee’s life, and the dares become more humiliating and downright manipulating. Vee hits rock bottom before she realizes that Nerve has got some nerve to treat teens like they are guinea pigs in a cage. Ryan has written an original, page-turning novel that offers a slice of pop culture that gives a whole new meaning to the trendy, reality-television genre. Ryan’s first-person portrayal of the bemused Vee as she is lifted into sudden stardom is both uplifting and heartbreaking. The pressure put on these teens to carry out degrading challenges for material things will have many teens talking and thinking twice about posting spontaneous videos online for the entire world to see. Ages 15 to 18.

Children's Literature - Sarah Maury Swan

A cautionary tale about being careful what you wish for and discovering who your true friends are, this book does let the reader suspend disbelief for the most part. The prologue gives away plot details, namely that game players are never free of the "Watchers." Also, the girl in the prologue is never mentioned in the story which follows. Seventeen-year-old Vee has watched other people compete for prizes given by an online game producer called Nerve and has laughed along with all her friends as the contestants do silly and embarrassing things. Successful competitors move up the levels harder and more dangerous dares, but it is all a fake, right? Vee is suckered in to win a prize that seems picked just for her. Since the outcome of her dare is a bit more revealing than she has anticipated, she agrees with her best friend's opinion that she should do no more dares. In the meantime, Vee is serving her six-month's punishment for falling asleep in her car with the motor running, parked in the garage and everybody thinks she is suicidal. She is not and she works hard to prove that to her parents. The prizes entice her to try another dare, which makes her friend super angry with her. The good thing about the dares is the hot guy she has been paired with and the ever more enticing prizes—like a full ride at a top-notch fashion-design school. But is it worth it to be stuck in a locked room with several other contestants all armed with guns? In desperation, Vee smashes a two-way mirror and escapes with her friends, declaring the game to be over, but is it? Reviewer: Sarah Maury Swan

Kirkus Reviews

A girl who's always stage crew, never the star, finds herself in the limelight when she's chosen as a finalist in a disturbing Internet-based reality game. As Vee explains it, NERVE "is basically truth or dare, without the truth part," in which players are Watched by those who pay a fee to observe and a premium to record the game. Tired of always playing it safe, she performs an audition dare: Dumping cold water on herself in a coffee shop. Taped and uploaded to the NERVE site by her friend Tommy, the subsequent wet-T-shirt effect garners enough online attention that she is selected for a set of escalating dares that take her to the grand finals. With each dare, a commensurate prize inferred from her ThisIsMe profile is dangled in front of her. Between momentum and cupidity, she finds herself partnered with Ian, "a smokin'-hot guy who's eyeing me like candy," in a secret room in a Seattle nightclub along with five other players, who must simultaneously cooperate and compete in ever-more humiliating and dangerous stunts to win extravagant, personalized grand prizes. The commentary on today's life-as-public-spectacle society is both unsubtle and sound; the plot's nearer-future similarities to The Hunger Games are equally inescapable. If characterization and theme are obvious, the pacing is nevertheless relentless, and readers will find themselves flipping madly to the very last page. (Thriller. 14-18)

Nerve (Movie Tie-In)

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