Customer Reviews

Nightmare Academy: The Veritas Project - Volume 2

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Nightmare Academy was an overall awesome, thriller fiction book. I'd have to say the book was one of the most suspenseful books I've read. After the first few chapters, which start out slow compared to the rest of the book, I couldn't put it down. Nightmare Academy is about a family, the Springfields, who are put on a case to find out how a boy's memory was almost completely wiped out. The Springfield's twins, Elijah and Elisha, act like homeless kids and are taken in by a mysterious woman. They are asked to stay the night at her hotel, but when they wake up, they are in a completely different place where rules don't exist and all communication to the outside world is gone. Their parents have to find them before they are killed or turn out like the boy who almost lost his memory. I won't give away any more of the book, but I would recommend it to anyone.
I would suggest that the reader reads the first book in the series, Hangman's Curse, before they read Nightmare Academy so that you can get to know the characters and also read another good book. Frank Peretti, the author, does an amazing job at building mystery and suspense. He also described the characters so well that I felt like I really knew them by the end of the book. Additionally, the tension and excitement by the end of the book makes you feel like you have to keep on reading until the end.
In conclusion, Nightmare Academy is a very good book, except for the slow beginning, that I would recommend to any fiction lover. The plot is excellent and the characters have interesting personalities that anyone could enjoy.

This book is incredible! I've never been one for long reviews, and I don't want to spoil anyone's fun, so I won't say too much. Some Christian parents may shrink from allowing their kids to read a book with an ominous cover that says "Nightmare Academy". Their fears are probably not helped by the short synoposis on the back, telling of Alvin Rogers, a fifteen year old boy who's lost his mind. Yet, as you read and the story unfolds, you see the message, that is so simple yet so potent: Without truth, there is nothing.

Reading the first few paragraphs(which you can acsess for the most part on this website), you get a look into the mind of Alvin Rogers once all truth has been erased from his mind. I won't give it away, but I'll quickly make up my own character and give you his short story to illustrate what happens in this book:

Micheal Brubaker is an ordinary thirteen year old. Ordinary, except that he's a runaway. He's picked up by a friendly woman, who guides him to the Light of Day youth shelter. He accepts her friendly offer of a summer academy, a cross between summer camp and summer school. He goes to bed in the shelter, and wakes up in the Knight-Moore academy, where he is led to believe that there is no truth. Suddenly, with no truth, he realizes nothing is certain. He turns to walk down a stairway behind him and finds that he is in outer space. He ducks back into the game room only to discover he is in prison and chained, yet he can't feel the chains. The colors of everything are shifting and whirring, and his enviorment changes. He shouts for help but can't hear himself. He starts running but can't move.

That is what life is like without truth. Without any truth at all, you can walk out your front door and find you're in a desert. You turn around to look at your house only to find that there is just a giant termite mound. All in all, this book is awesome. Read it!

Really enjoyed this book, even more than the first in the Veritas series. The emphasis on truth and morals - what happens in a society where absolutes are removed. Captivating and moved at a good pace. I hope there are more Veritas cases coming in the future. (My kids love the glow in the dark cover too - nice touch for the type of mystery thriller book).

An amazingly well-written book that makes you think about Right and Wrong. It shows what would happen if there was not any truth, or boundries. I couldn't put the book down till I finished readin it. One quote that stuck out to me was "Take away truth and they will lie. Scoff and virtue and betrayl will follow" It showed how a pychological goverment experiment on different personalities, can go ary and what some people are trying to figure out on how to control others. A Book that people can relate to in a way with what happens in everyday life, it will keep you thinking long after the epilouge.

I read the book (Hangman's Curse) that is the first in the Veritas series and loved it. When I moved onto this book (Nightmare Academy), I simply couldn't put it down. Frank Peretti's statement is made powerfully.

The book makes a strong statement about truth, and the everyday truths around us. The plot is ingenius, the point is thought-provoking, and each peice of the story intense. Truth. It seems a simple concept, eh? Just you read this and you will see.

You know, i read everyone else's reviews and laughed. Obviously, they were written by parents. The truth is, the point of Nightmare Academy was that no matter what happens to you or what situation you are put in, God is stable ground. He will always stand firm and when you need him, he will be there for you. The book is written for teens, not adults. The message is clear and instead of looking at it from a political/professional view, look through your faith. I LOVE the way it intertwines action and killer ability to use technology. Elijah and Elisha are 21st century action heroes. Frank Peretti, you are a gifted writer, talent in reaching a person's mind, and expanding a teens view of the world. I WANT MORE!!!!

Frank Peretti did it again! He has created a masterpiece that keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time. This book has a great message to it. Truth can't be taken out of society without lasting affects on people. Although I knew how the scientists were creating virtual reality, ... I had no idea why they were doing it. Although it is a little far-fetched, it is close to being believable. It isn't as believable as the first one, though, but that's okay. I read this whole book in nine hours. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and the debates between Elijah and the counselor at the camp are fun to read. Keap up the good work, Frank Peretti!

"Nightmare Academy" is book two in "The Veritas Project" series. Reading like a mix of the old TV show "Millennium" and the "Spy Kids" movies, but with a distinctly Christian worldview, The Veritas Project books follow the adventures of the Springfield family (Dad Nate, mom Sarah, and teen wondertwins, Elijah and Elisha) as they fight the bad guys with the help of the shadowy Veritas leader, Mr. Morgan, and the imprimatur of the President himself.

Summoned to aid a teen found in the middle of a rural road, his mind completely jumbled, the Springfields follow the boy's lead (during a rare lucid moment) to a youth center in Seattle. The center offers young runaways an unusual proposition, one which has potentially lethal consequences. The twins, posing as street kids in order to investigate for Veritas, are soon in the belly of the beast. After agreeing to the offer, they find themselves shuttled off to a mysterious school attempting to rewrite societal conventions, The Knight-Moore Academy.

Unaware of the exact location of the school, and unable to remember how they arrived, Elisha and Elijah are forced to match wits with many other kids and their eerie instructors. The school's staff - a generation and a couple continents removed from their kindred found in "The Manchurian Candidate" - attempt to rewire the students' thinking via clever verbal manipulations (and a few physical ones, as well.) Black becomes white and truth whatever one makes of it. While their parents search cross-country for them, the twins battle the brainwashing by holding true to God and His absolutes, becoming outsiders in the student body. Soon the social engineering wreaks "Lord of the Flies"-like consequences and what masquerades on the surface as a rarified prep school soon promises a learning experience no youth could ever imagine, even in their worst nightmares.

Frank Peretti's foray into youth fiction should please young readers looking for a thriller with solid, evangelical Christian values. A definite page-turner, "Nightmare Academy" has the needed creepiness balanced by biblical morality to give one the shivers without the guilt induced by reading something of questionable taste. The strong message that relativism is senseless and can only bring the downfall of our society, leaving us prey to nefarious forces, is reinforced on nearly every page.

Yet while this comprises the basic theme of the entire book, it comes off being heavy handed (though, sadly, not unlike many other books in this genre.) As Christian writers attempt to counter youth-oriented lit that fails to embrace traditional biblical values with sanitized, message-driven lit of their own, they've yet to really come up with books that drive truth home with more subtlety. C. S. Lewis' "The Chronicles of Narnia" is the archetype, but rarely has it been done better. Attempting to shoehorn concepts espoused in "The Left Behind " series into other writings also bedevils books like these. Rather than creating a unique vision, they merely look like copies of everything else. Even the best works are missing that magical quality that gives them life unto themselves. The result is, therefore, always mildly disappointing.

So while "Nightmare Academy" is a decent escape, its fire is nearly snuffed by the unfortunate hamhandedness of the presentation of its message. Discerning readers, even the young, will get the point immediately. We just need to have it presented more deftly - less sledgehammer, more skillful storytelling. Peretti is one of the foremost evangelical novelists out there, blessed with the chops to make it work. We should expect better.

What do you get when you take tolerance, toss in some individualism and a good helping of 'personal' truth??? The Answer..CHAOS!

Frank Peretti addresses what happens to a group of teens (and adults) when they are thrust into the existent, yet non-existent, campus of Knight-Moore Academy (funded under a little known government education grant!) where there is no absolute truth -- there is only 'your truth' and 'my truth' which can both exist at the same time. For example, when one student 'steals' another's walkman, the 'thief' says they are only 'sharing' it (without the owner's permission).

Seems harmless to some...except when a missing teen is finally found, but with no memory...and is later found dead! And when Elijah and Elisa go under cover to investigate, it seems they are going to loose their minds too...and maybe their lives!

This book addresses the problem teens (and adults) face when society tells them that there is no one truth about issues they face. For example, God says to save sex for marriage; society says to have sex when it 'feels right'.

I am the father of three children. I read this book before letting them read it, and I highly recommend it to my own kids, as well as all teens and their parents. Frank Peretti is a very gifted author and fills these pages with thrills and chills...and truth.

I couldn't believe how symbolic this was to feeling normal but having an eerie feeling at the same time. I'm starting to look at things happening around me and how some people are so unfair. Everytime that happens I remember a teacher, a special teacher at Nightmare Academy. Either/Or, Both/And.

Peretti gives you a whole New way to look at life. You'll see what he was getting at if you look close enough. It tells people that some people can never be trusted and some people want power and more power. That's what it's about. Power.

It've overwhelming to see how Peretti combines right and wrong and slaps them in your face and tells you what's going on in the world or possibly what you don't know about but what is going on behind our backs.