An engaging thriller with an academic setting that readers wouldn’t want to be caught dead in.
A debut novel proves that college can literally be murder.
Of course, Nowhere Island University isn’t your average institution of higher learning. Nathan Jacobs, Sherman’s protagonist, learns this very quickly. NIU is actually a prep school for mercenaries, drawing students from terrorist and paramilitary groups around the globe. So how did Nate, admittedly adrift when it comes to his life plans, end up here? Nate got recruited at his high school Career Day by the shadowy spy agency UNIX and was sent in undercover to investigate NIU. Joining him is John Marshall, another UNIX plant. Nate fears that he’s in over his head but soon shows that he can hold his own alongside more experienced students. But he’s hamstrung by having a moral compass: “There are people who will hurt the people I love, maybe because of irrational hatred, maybe because they think it will make a point or profit, or maybe because they’re the kind of sicko who enjoys it.” He’s inducted into a secret society comprising seven of the school’s fiercest fighters. While all of the students have to watch their backs, Nate discovers that the biggest obstacle is the curriculum, which produces a high fatality rate. So it becomes a never-ending struggle for Nate and his new friends to outlast the sadistic program set up by the school masters. Sherman has created a crisply paced thriller culled from a series of his online postings over two years. Remarkably, he has smoothly married together these posts into a work that should capably hold readers’ attention. It is a visceral novel, as he recounts in graphic detail the grisly, life-and-death struggles of the NIU students, a majority of whom don’t survive. In his author’s note, Sherman admits to being a video game fan, and this tale feels like one, with a similarly high body count. But characterization is a shortcoming, as, other than Nate, the players aren’t three-dimensional enough for readers to become invested in them. The reasons most of these students willingly inject themselves into this setting aren’t made clear. Still, it’s possible to ride along on the frenetic action and enjoy the violent world that the author has developed.
An engaging thriller with an academic setting that readers wouldn’t want to be caught dead in.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5450-1823-1
Page Count: 238
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
More faithful to the original but less astonishing than Christopher Logue’s work and lacking some of the music of Fagles’...
Fresh version of one of the world’s oldest epic poems, a foundational text of Western literature.
Sing to me, O muse, of the—well, in the very opening line, the phrase Wilson (Classical Studies, Univ. of Pennsylvania) chooses is the rather bland “complicated man,” the adjective missing out on the deviousness implied in the Greek polytropos, which Robert Fagles translated as “of twists and turns.” Wilson has a few favorite words that the Greek doesn’t strictly support, one of them being “monstrous,” meaning something particularly heinous, and to have Telemachus “showing initiative” seems a little report-card–ish and entirely modern. Still, rose-fingered Dawn is there in all her glory, casting her brilliant light over the wine-dark sea, and Wilson has a lively understanding of the essential violence that underlies the complicated Odysseus’ great ruse to slaughter the suitors who for 10 years have been eating him out of palace and home and pitching woo to the lovely, blameless Penelope; son Telemachus shows that initiative, indeed, by stringing up a bevy of servant girls, “their heads all in a row / …strung up with the noose around their necks / to make their death an agony.” In an interesting aside in her admirably comprehensive introduction, which extends nearly 80 pages, Wilson observes that the hanging “allows young Telemachus to avoid being too close to these girls’ abused, sexualized bodies,” and while her reading sometimes tends to be overly psychologized, she also notes that the violence of Odysseus, by which those suitors “fell like flies,” mirrors that of some of the other ungracious hosts he encountered along his long voyage home to Ithaca.
More faithful to the original but less astonishing than Christopher Logue’s work and lacking some of the music of Fagles’ recent translations of Homer; still, a readable and worthy effort.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-393-08905-9
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
