Nerve by Jeanne Ryan ~ A Book Review

After suffering a disappointing blow from one of her best friends, Vee decides to take a chance on something that is far out of her comfort-zone. Participating in an internet sensation, Nerve, a game where players compete rounds of dares for prizes, she is paired up with a boy named Ian who has his own mysterious reasons for playing. As the game progresses, the dares are seemingly harmless, and the prizes are things that Vee can’t resist. As the game progresses, Vee learns that Nerve may know more about her than she realized, and Ian may or may not be on her side. As her life is being pulled apart, will she be able to leave the game or will she have fallen too deep?

Essentially, shy, awkward girl who doesn’t fit in with her peers does something out of the ordinary causing her to meet a dark, mysterious boy who challenges her to perform insane, life-threatening feats as they fall in love. Said boy's reasons for playing are that he is trying to get away from his abusive father. Sound familiar, Divergent fans? 

Stepping away from its formula plotting, I will say that I genuinely enjoyed this book. However, I unfortunately watched the movie first, not realizing that it was a book, and it was one of those rare instances when the book was disappointing in comparison to the movie. While it’s true that the book better developed characters by giving more background information and customizing Nerve prizes to their specific desires, the movie took some dramatic liberties that made the book seem too straightforward. In fact, the only points that the movie kept were the characters’ names and the basic idea of the Nerve game.

While in the book, the game was only described as being online with vague descriptions of an app the players had to download onto their phones and some chat windows to upload videos. The movie created this entire scheme where Nerve was on the deep web and it couldn’t be stopped as long as people were watching it. This made it more exciting and less vague. Also, in the movie, the competition aspect of Nerve was clearer and we saw other players’ dares and how they affected the plot.

I will say that the book was exciting in its own right, and if I hadn’t seen the movie first, I believe I would have liked it more. It was quick paced and a fast read for me. While the book will be just another of the many I’ve read, the movie has become one of my favorites and I will watch it many times I’m sure.