Nerve Tour Stop (Review/Giveaway)

Today I have the Nerve by Jeanne Ryan blog tour stopping by.  This post features my review of Nerve as well as a giveaway to win a signed copy for yourself.  This tour is brought to you by AToMR Book Tours, to see all the stops on the tour click here.

TITLE Nerve
AUTHOR Jeanne Ryan
PUBLICATION September 13th 2012 by Dial Books (Penguin)
READ September 12 - 13, 2012

A high-stakes online game of dares turns deadly

When Vee is picked to be a player in NERVE, an anonymous game of dares broadcast live online, she discovers that the game knows her. They tempt her with prizes taken from her ThisIsMe page and team her up with the perfect boy, sizzling-hot Ian. At first it's exhilarating--Vee and Ian's fans cheer them on to riskier dares with higher stakes. But the game takes a twisted turn when they're directed to a secret location with five other players for the Grand Prize round. Suddenly they're playing all or nothing, with their lives on the line. Just how far will Vee go before she loses NERVE?

Debut author Jeanne Ryan delivers an un-putdownable suspense thriller.

Nerve is a fast paced thrill ride that grabs hold of you on the very first page and doesn't let go until the very last shocking line. I thoroughly enjoyed everything about this book, from the in your face cover to the clever storyline I was hooked, line and sinker! Vee is a behind the scenes kind of girl, instead of being center stage she works in costume design on her high school play. The actors who take center stage every night are her best friend, Sydney and her long time crush, Matthew. As Vee realizes that Matthew is going for her loud, rambunctious friend over her she decides to step out of her comfort zone in hopes of being noticed. She signs up for an online game called NERVE in which everyday people are given dares by a super secret company that they must fulfill in real-time, streamed live over the internet.

The premise for this one sucked me in as soon as I read the blurb. People going out of their comfort zone and doing increasingly difficult dares to win bigger and better prizes each time. How awesome! I'm not going to lie, at first (before things got out of hand) I was wishing this was real! I would have totally rocked the preliminary dares and had a blast doing so, but that's how they suck you in right? It can't be easy the whole way. So the dares get exponentially difficult and even painfully personal as the novel wears on. It does definitely go to some extremes, and I do have questions about how such things could have been pulled off, and how NERVE would ever get away with something like this, but alas, this is a fiction novel! And it is a damn fun one!

The characters were great, I really felt Vee's desperation and her need to escape the mold that she was placed into. Sydney was the typical high school snotbag and Matthew angered me quite a bit. And we also have a bit of a romance here folks, there are two possible choices for Vee and I was really worried we would be faced with a love triangle, but it didn't turn out that way at all! While I knew that there was something amiss and a big twist would be coming I couldn't pinpoint exactly what it would be at any point in the novel. I had so many ideas of where the story could go, and while the outcome was one of my possible scenarios, it was still fulfilling and felt like a big 180 in the story.

If you're looking for a fast paced story that is perfectly out of the ordinary, Jeanne Ryan has weaved the perfect tale for you. The ending had me dying for more and now I am left to wonder, will there be more? PLEASE LET THERE BE MORE!

A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Along with the tour comes the chance to win a signed hardcover copy of Nerve! This giveaway is open to addresses in the US and Canada. Just fill out the Rafflecopter below to enter.
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Jeanne's Website / Twitter / Facebook

I’ve lived all over the world, raised in a family with eleven brothers and sisters. I spent my early childhood in Hawaii and the rest of my growing-up years trying to figure out a way to get back there, with stops in South Korea, Michigan and Germany along the way. Before writing fiction, I tried my hand at many things, including war game simulation and youth development research. But I decided it was much more fun to work on stories than statistics.

These days, I still love Hawaii, but have found my home under the moody skies of the Pacific Northwest.