Nerve by Jeanne Ryan | Book Review | Game Thriller
Soon after I finished reading the Nerve by Jeanne Ryan, I watched the movie.
The Ian actor was so bad that I hated the movie. Sydney was crap and that Mad Max guy was totally bullshit.
These paper characters with paper motivations.
The book is bad, but people are saying the movie is good. But No. Movie is also a proper failure.
Nerve by Jeanne Ryan
Vee is a typical ya protagonist with low self-esteem and an extrovert friend.
Features of Vee:
- Low self-esteem
- No one likes me
- Crush on a hot boy
- Fun best female friend
- Male friend who likes her but she don’t reciprocate
- Meet with Hot Male on a dare
- Confront her fears and problems
- Fight with the evil corporation
Yes. This is the story and the features of Vee.
The hot male friend is Ian.
He is:
- Good looking
- Fall for the protagonist in the first meeting
- Raise the confidence of Vee
- Help her
Ian is a tier 10 Samwise Gamgee who also shag his Frodo.
Sydney the best friend of Vee (according to Vee) is:
- Insta whore
- Wanna be famous
- Insecure
- Everything Vee want to be
- Stupid
The last and most stupid character is a friendzone friend — Tommy.
He is:
- Do everything Vee says
- Support her
- A Niceguy
- Manage the mess of Vee
All these characters with no personality plus a stupid game in a world where there are no rules.
It could have been a readable story. What I really read is a thriller gimmick.
There was an attempt to create some depth for Vee but it was soon forgotten in the rush of dares.
The Game
Vee and Ian were playing the game and watchers were apparently following them. But nobody knows who arrange that.
Tommy does some crip-crap about hiding the whois of domain name, but anyone can do that. There are other ways to track a site, Tommy.
This reminds me of a book I read a few days back. It was I See You. A person makes a site and uploads the information about women. The member can read them plan the route accordingly so they can bump into them.
It was a good idea as people can plan the interaction with a girl and impressed her. It is illegal but I enjoyed the idea. However, in the book, all the boomer police departments fail to track the site. Best part, the site was integrated with PayPal.
How stupid!!
How authors fail to understand that tracking a site is more than just doing a Google search.
Like 90& of the Internet is not index.
Bt whatever.
Nerve Movie
Movie is different from the book as usual.
There is less character and the people are more forgiving. But in the end, it gives an actual competition to book in boring me.
One positive point was casting Emma Roberts. But you cannot enjoy a mainstream movie because the actress is good looking.
I liked the Emma in It’s Kind of the Funny Story and We are the Millers. Her acting is not so good in Nerve. It was off.
Dave Franco was as usual. displaying teeth unnecessarily.
Why I am being so mean? Festivals maybe.
About the end, the movie and book go in a different direction. Somehow, Vee becomes a master planner and bring down the evil corporation by evoking the guilt sentiments in the watchers.
That’s the most stupid end I ever saw in the last few years. And I have seen the Justice League and Suicide Squad.
Like it was so easy to wake the human beings.
Conclusion
It is hard to choose between two bad things, but if I have to, I will go with the movie.
Atleast it will end in two hours. The book takes 4 hours and mental energy, and server very less.
TBH, if you are a person who needs fast thriller with no subjective quality, go with this book. I hope you get some adrenaline.
Though there is many fish in the market. One good option is Panic by Lauren Oliver.