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The Nerve
A reclusive college freshman inadvertently builds an explosive musical career when she creates a fake band to avoid failing an art assignment, but will this fame and fortune make her or break her? Ariel is at first overwhelmed when surprise fame and fortune turn her life upside down, but then learns to take control of things the way she never has before, finding an equal footing with friends, a relationship, and reconciliation with her family.
271 pages, Paperback
First published December 25, 2024
About the author
Emma Burns
8 books2 followersDid you know I have a podcast? It's true! Look for Sacred Cheese of Life on Apple Podcasts, or go to http://emmaburns.org and click on Sacred Cheese of Life. You can also see a lot of essays about fiction on the Story on the Brain link.
My favorite things are reading, writing, watching things, and putting them all together to analyze fiction as a whole in a fun and energetic way in order to improve my own writing. Sacred Cheese of Life!
This refers to something Stephen Crane mentions in a very weird narrator comment in a short story called "The Open Boat," where he's mulling the meaning of life and how it's possible these people could just up and die when they're so close to shore. How is that fair? Are they getting yanked away just as they reach the sacred cheese of life? What on earth is he talking about there?
I think it's about all those things we love so much that they make life worth living. For me that's a lot of things, but life would be empty without fiction, for sure. So I love to dig into what makes fiction work and use that to improve my own writing.
My favorite things are reading, writing, watching things, and putting them all together to analyze fiction as a whole in a fun and energetic way in order to improve my own writing. Sacred Cheese of Life!
This refers to something Stephen Crane mentions in a very weird narrator comment in a short story called "The Open Boat," where he's mulling the meaning of life and how it's possible these people could just up and die when they're so close to shore. How is that fair? Are they getting yanked away just as they reach the sacred cheese of life? What on earth is he talking about there?
I think it's about all those things we love so much that they make life worth living. For me that's a lot of things, but life would be empty without fiction, for sure. So I love to dig into what makes fiction work and use that to improve my own writing.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 15, 2025
Ariel is 18 and settling in to college and dormitory life in her first year with music and art majors, many opportunities for meeting new people and situations, and having her first experiences with boys, actually young people her age, interested in her whose interest she’s allowed to reciprocate, free from her mother’s forbidding requirements that excluded her from almost everything except her studies until now.
Now that she’s living in a dorm, mom isn’t adjusting well to her daughter living where she can’t monitor her daily.
Ariel is caught up in her own life in college: a new and exciting milieu, with unique as well as common situations and experiences. It’s an exciting, sometimes fraught environment offering diverse choices for navigating adulthood, choosing a career, etc.
As well as lots of interesting people, she has daily opportunities to learn, as well as learning to interact well with others. She has the confidence to create art and music, won by lots of hard work and excellent counseling, as well as the unconditional acceptance by her lifelong friend Carlyle. Carlyle’s mother has been Ariel’s music teacher and advisor since childhood and still has a large influence in both Ariel and her mom’s life.
I appreciated that she has empathy for everyone: how kindly yet succinctly Ariel tells Nathan she doesn’t want to go out with him again, saving him from feeling bad about himself. This was just one of the delightful conversations in this book, here it's illustrating her kindness as well as willingness to save someone’s feelings despite having found out from the guy’s roommate his real motives for seeking her out. Offering the benefit of the doubt despite evidence to the contrary, she gracefully navigated a difficult situation, which in interpersonal relationships is a job and a half for young adults to learn, and I wish we all could find our way as well, and as happily as she does.
There was much here to appreciate and remark upon. I attempted to cut it down to what was most meaningful to me but realized that few readers want to read all my aha moments. A reader would be better served just by reading the book and discovering what insights jumped out at them, about people and situations.
I did select a few paragraphs that were among the many that were meaningful to me.
I loved reading about what Ariel was thinking when eventually she becomes known as The Nerve, (previously, she had recorded anonymously) which had sprung from a class project and was not originally intended or expected to become known nationally.
Her interview was playing on the TV in the chefs’ area. Winston and all the chefs were watching it with absolute concentration. Ariel joined them silently and was glad to see she didn’t look like an idiot or a child, both of which she had feared. Jamie, the hair and makeup person should be very proud, because she looked amazing. And Ariel was proud of herself because she seemed utterly calm and relaxed. They had cut out her questions to Zach, but she could see her interest in him showing through. It made her seem kind and approachable.
Maybe I am, she thought. How would I know? I’m always myself.
Interior dialogue with Nathan, her first boyfriend:
She picked up the last of her slice and took a bite, then noticed over the slice that Nathan was looking at her with soft eyes and a sweet smile. He likes me, she thought. He really likes me. Do I like him? I’m not looking at him that way. Is that okay? Do I care if it’s okay or not?
She consulted her conscience and realized she was fine with it as long as she wasn’t lying to him or anything. Right? She had told him straight out how she felt, or rather didn’t feel.
They stayed up far too late and definitely drank too much, and they talked and kissed some more, but something had subtly shifted. Ariel was aware she was only exploring, trying new things, as much as she liked Nathan, and she was aware that Nathan was actually interested in her, but in ways that somehow didn’t seem to have anything to do with her actual self. It’s like he had invented a different Ariel that he was super into and thought that that Ariel was her. But it wasn’t, and she knew it.
Later, with Winston: another boyfriend:
She was thinking about how the only person she actually really trusted was Carlyle, and how she adored Winston but didn’t really know him that well, except in two realms: the musical and the physical. But, like, what was he like in a relationship? What was he like as a friend and a boyfriend? What kind of person was he really? She was thinking that she was coloring in the rest of the space around him the way she wanted it to be and not necessarily the way it really was.
“Ariel,” he said. “Come back.”
“I’m back,” she said, waking up. “Okay. So I learned this thing from my friend Lily where you say stuff. It’s not how I was raised. I wasn’t ever supposed to say anything, especially not about what I wanted—that was especially illegal—or about our family, or anything. Like, my dad disappeared many years ago but I never asked my mom about it because I wasn’t supposed to talk about it. Right?”
“I get that,” he said. “I know a lot of families that are like that, actually.”
“Okay, good. That helps a lot. Because my instinct is, when something is a big deal, not to talk about it. At ALL. Ever. And I’m working really hard to just say stuff instead.”
“That seems super healthy,” Winston said. He was nodding and frowning. “Not saying stuff, that’s my whole thing too, but I know it doesn’t work with the band and it definitely doesn’t work even in a duet. That whole withholding, passive-aggressive, try to control someone else with your mind instead of asking things. I hate that.”
“I hate it, too,” Ariel said. “Can we make a deal never to do that?”
“Absolutely,” Winston said. “But we also have to make a deal that we’re allowed to call out the other person when we see them doing it. Because you can’t break a lifelong habit just by deciding not to do it anymore.”
“Also a deal.” Ariel frowned. “Zarah has been telling me for years that I don’t know how to accept affection. She says I don’t believe anyone would actually like me.”
I also found valuable:
Ariel didn’t say anything.
“Well. Let me just tell you something a therapist told me a long time ago. I used to be just like you, never talking back, never standing up for myself, always trying to be good to earn the approval of people who used that to control me and never, ever gave that approval. When I first started standing up for myself, it always got me a huge backlash. People who had always been lousy to me would scream and vastly overreact when I stood up for myself even a little bit.”
“Sounds familiar,” Ariel said. Her voice was scratchy. She cleared her throat.
“I’m not surprised. Those people are angry because you’re getting out of the role they’ve assigned to you. But you’re not doing anything wrong in getting out of that role.”
Ariel listened harder than she’d ever listened before.
“It might feel like you’re doing something wrong, because everyone will be so angry at you. But that anger just means they’re trying to keep you in your place. Except it isn’t your place and never was. You’re having a revolution. But it’s a revolution where the oppressed stands up to the oppressor. Of course they want to keep you down. But that’s no reason to stay there. In fact it’s even more reason to stand up and fly free.
“It feels disloyal,” Ariel said.
“So is being horrible to you,” Zarah said, sounding extremely fierce. “
”Emotional abuse is exactly the same. You don’t have any obligation to stay in that relationship, especially if it’s doing you harm.”
”It’s definitely doing me harm,” Ariel said.
“You wouldn’t stay with a boyfriend or girlfriend who was like that. Or a roommate. Or a friend. Or a teacher. You wouldn’t stay with a backpack or phone or car that behaved that way to you.”
“I think I get it,” Ariel said. “Doesn’t it make me a bad person to be like that back to them, though?”
“See, there’s nothing to be ashamed of if someone has been awful to you,” Zarah said. “I was in an emotionally abusive relationship myself, so that’s how I recognize what you’re dealing with. It’s the worst kind of trap because you end up doing this to yourself. You keep trying and trying to be a good person to earn the approval of someone who uses that against you. Don’t do it, Ariel. And don’t feel bad about not doing it. You can walk away.”
“Can I?” Ariel had picked up her cello again and was holding it in playing position, partly for the comfort of the familiar shape and posture. She loved her cello.
“Of course,” Zarah said. “You don’t need to be anybody’s whipping boy ever again.”
”Wow,” Ariel said.
“Right?” Zarah said. “It doesn’t mean they don’t love you, just that they show it wrong…Nobody is allowed to hurt you, even if they love you. Especially if they love you.”
Each reader will find different selections valuable in this tale. As well as being an interesting story, there’s a lot here for further thought and discussion. It changed my perspectives about some major things I hadn’t thought about or puzzled over, to my own detriments, resulting in many years being the silent child in relationships within my family of origin, who had no notion of respect of emotional boundaries.
This tale is a thoughtful contribution to enlarging one’s perspective, suggesting by the characters’ situations some healthier ways of being with each other, communicating with each other, and, resulting in healthier relationships that equally honor all participants.
Now that she’s living in a dorm, mom isn’t adjusting well to her daughter living where she can’t monitor her daily.
Ariel is caught up in her own life in college: a new and exciting milieu, with unique as well as common situations and experiences. It’s an exciting, sometimes fraught environment offering diverse choices for navigating adulthood, choosing a career, etc.
As well as lots of interesting people, she has daily opportunities to learn, as well as learning to interact well with others. She has the confidence to create art and music, won by lots of hard work and excellent counseling, as well as the unconditional acceptance by her lifelong friend Carlyle. Carlyle’s mother has been Ariel’s music teacher and advisor since childhood and still has a large influence in both Ariel and her mom’s life.
I appreciated that she has empathy for everyone: how kindly yet succinctly Ariel tells Nathan she doesn’t want to go out with him again, saving him from feeling bad about himself. This was just one of the delightful conversations in this book, here it's illustrating her kindness as well as willingness to save someone’s feelings despite having found out from the guy’s roommate his real motives for seeking her out. Offering the benefit of the doubt despite evidence to the contrary, she gracefully navigated a difficult situation, which in interpersonal relationships is a job and a half for young adults to learn, and I wish we all could find our way as well, and as happily as she does.
There was much here to appreciate and remark upon. I attempted to cut it down to what was most meaningful to me but realized that few readers want to read all my aha moments. A reader would be better served just by reading the book and discovering what insights jumped out at them, about people and situations.
I did select a few paragraphs that were among the many that were meaningful to me.
I loved reading about what Ariel was thinking when eventually she becomes known as The Nerve, (previously, she had recorded anonymously) which had sprung from a class project and was not originally intended or expected to become known nationally.
Her interview was playing on the TV in the chefs’ area. Winston and all the chefs were watching it with absolute concentration. Ariel joined them silently and was glad to see she didn’t look like an idiot or a child, both of which she had feared. Jamie, the hair and makeup person should be very proud, because she looked amazing. And Ariel was proud of herself because she seemed utterly calm and relaxed. They had cut out her questions to Zach, but she could see her interest in him showing through. It made her seem kind and approachable.
Maybe I am, she thought. How would I know? I’m always myself.
Interior dialogue with Nathan, her first boyfriend:
She picked up the last of her slice and took a bite, then noticed over the slice that Nathan was looking at her with soft eyes and a sweet smile. He likes me, she thought. He really likes me. Do I like him? I’m not looking at him that way. Is that okay? Do I care if it’s okay or not?
She consulted her conscience and realized she was fine with it as long as she wasn’t lying to him or anything. Right? She had told him straight out how she felt, or rather didn’t feel.
They stayed up far too late and definitely drank too much, and they talked and kissed some more, but something had subtly shifted. Ariel was aware she was only exploring, trying new things, as much as she liked Nathan, and she was aware that Nathan was actually interested in her, but in ways that somehow didn’t seem to have anything to do with her actual self. It’s like he had invented a different Ariel that he was super into and thought that that Ariel was her. But it wasn’t, and she knew it.
Later, with Winston: another boyfriend:
She was thinking about how the only person she actually really trusted was Carlyle, and how she adored Winston but didn’t really know him that well, except in two realms: the musical and the physical. But, like, what was he like in a relationship? What was he like as a friend and a boyfriend? What kind of person was he really? She was thinking that she was coloring in the rest of the space around him the way she wanted it to be and not necessarily the way it really was.
“Ariel,” he said. “Come back.”
“I’m back,” she said, waking up. “Okay. So I learned this thing from my friend Lily where you say stuff. It’s not how I was raised. I wasn’t ever supposed to say anything, especially not about what I wanted—that was especially illegal—or about our family, or anything. Like, my dad disappeared many years ago but I never asked my mom about it because I wasn’t supposed to talk about it. Right?”
“I get that,” he said. “I know a lot of families that are like that, actually.”
“Okay, good. That helps a lot. Because my instinct is, when something is a big deal, not to talk about it. At ALL. Ever. And I’m working really hard to just say stuff instead.”
“That seems super healthy,” Winston said. He was nodding and frowning. “Not saying stuff, that’s my whole thing too, but I know it doesn’t work with the band and it definitely doesn’t work even in a duet. That whole withholding, passive-aggressive, try to control someone else with your mind instead of asking things. I hate that.”
“I hate it, too,” Ariel said. “Can we make a deal never to do that?”
“Absolutely,” Winston said. “But we also have to make a deal that we’re allowed to call out the other person when we see them doing it. Because you can’t break a lifelong habit just by deciding not to do it anymore.”
“Also a deal.” Ariel frowned. “Zarah has been telling me for years that I don’t know how to accept affection. She says I don’t believe anyone would actually like me.”
I also found valuable:
Ariel didn’t say anything.
“Well. Let me just tell you something a therapist told me a long time ago. I used to be just like you, never talking back, never standing up for myself, always trying to be good to earn the approval of people who used that to control me and never, ever gave that approval. When I first started standing up for myself, it always got me a huge backlash. People who had always been lousy to me would scream and vastly overreact when I stood up for myself even a little bit.”
“Sounds familiar,” Ariel said. Her voice was scratchy. She cleared her throat.
“I’m not surprised. Those people are angry because you’re getting out of the role they’ve assigned to you. But you’re not doing anything wrong in getting out of that role.”
Ariel listened harder than she’d ever listened before.
“It might feel like you’re doing something wrong, because everyone will be so angry at you. But that anger just means they’re trying to keep you in your place. Except it isn’t your place and never was. You’re having a revolution. But it’s a revolution where the oppressed stands up to the oppressor. Of course they want to keep you down. But that’s no reason to stay there. In fact it’s even more reason to stand up and fly free.
“It feels disloyal,” Ariel said.
“So is being horrible to you,” Zarah said, sounding extremely fierce. “
”Emotional abuse is exactly the same. You don’t have any obligation to stay in that relationship, especially if it’s doing you harm.”
”It’s definitely doing me harm,” Ariel said.
“You wouldn’t stay with a boyfriend or girlfriend who was like that. Or a roommate. Or a friend. Or a teacher. You wouldn’t stay with a backpack or phone or car that behaved that way to you.”
“I think I get it,” Ariel said. “Doesn’t it make me a bad person to be like that back to them, though?”
“See, there’s nothing to be ashamed of if someone has been awful to you,” Zarah said. “I was in an emotionally abusive relationship myself, so that’s how I recognize what you’re dealing with. It’s the worst kind of trap because you end up doing this to yourself. You keep trying and trying to be a good person to earn the approval of someone who uses that against you. Don’t do it, Ariel. And don’t feel bad about not doing it. You can walk away.”
“Can I?” Ariel had picked up her cello again and was holding it in playing position, partly for the comfort of the familiar shape and posture. She loved her cello.
“Of course,” Zarah said. “You don’t need to be anybody’s whipping boy ever again.”
”Wow,” Ariel said.
“Right?” Zarah said. “It doesn’t mean they don’t love you, just that they show it wrong…Nobody is allowed to hurt you, even if they love you. Especially if they love you.”
Each reader will find different selections valuable in this tale. As well as being an interesting story, there’s a lot here for further thought and discussion. It changed my perspectives about some major things I hadn’t thought about or puzzled over, to my own detriments, resulting in many years being the silent child in relationships within my family of origin, who had no notion of respect of emotional boundaries.
This tale is a thoughtful contribution to enlarging one’s perspective, suggesting by the characters’ situations some healthier ways of being with each other, communicating with each other, and, resulting in healthier relationships that equally honor all participants.
Displaying 1 of 1 review