Blue Moon Publishers (ebook), 2015
186 Pages
What It's About
When the real world is emptied of all that you love, how can you keep yourself from dependence on the virtual?
Larissa Kenders lives in a world where the real and the virtual intermingle daily. After the supposed death of her soulmate, Andrew, Larissa is able to find solace by escaping to Nirvana, a virtual world where anything is possible - even visits with Andrew. Although Larissa is told that these meetings are not real, she cannot shake her suspicion that Andrew is indeed alive. When she begins an investigation of Hexagon, the very institution that she has been taught to trust, Larissa uncovers much more than she ever expected and places herself in serious danger. Her biggest challenge, however, remains determining what is real - and what is virtual.
Opening Sentence
There's nothing more appealing to freshman than an all girl's band playing in a University bar.
What I Thought
I thought Nirvana was okay but didn't live up to the expectations created by the blurb and the first few chapters. Dystopian novels are a personal favourite so I thought this novel would be right up my street.
Nirvana starts off well and I really liked the first couple of chapters. Then things went off on a tangent - not a good one.
Events move back and forth in time. I like time shifts when they're done well. This isn't the case with this novel. There were often time shifts within the same paragraph and I got really confused about what was going on and whether I was reading a flashback or something currently happening.
I also didn't feel very moved by the plight of the characters. Larissa is not a heroine. She mopes and whines a lot. I appreciate her plight over the fate of her husband but she was the central player and I couldn't get behind her or give much of a crap whether she found her husband or not. She really doesn't put a lot of effort into finding her husband.
I did like the world created in Nirvana and I liked the idea of virtual reality is commonplace. The premise just isn't executed very well.