Nemett’s book swerves between speculative coming-of-age fiction, a superhero story and an apocalyptic campus novel ... But I begrudgingly found the sincerities of both Nemett and his characters refreshing in their vulnerability ... Nemett captures a group whose unfettered exuberance is seldom found in today’s novels. There’s no final act in which they’re heroically rescued by self-awareness; the group remains forever 'masters of denial, impervious to reality.'

Adam Nemett’s debut novel, We Can Save Us All, is Fight Club by way of Don DeLillo with a side of Pynchon ... Nemett wonderfully employs what worked for Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age of Miracles and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven: the terrifying disaster flick is ubiquitous, cities crumbling to dust in an instant — the End of Days is gut-wrenching when it’s gradual, a faucet dripping toward a crescendo ... [Time,] like other portions of We Can Save Us All, treads a fine line between clever and awkward ... Though, notably, Nemett deserves commendation for writing with poignancy about the toll that college takes on mental health ... Despite the choppy USV plot line, the final third act of We Can Save Us All is as fast-paced as it is dark ... Nemett is an undeniable talent with a unique voice.

Nemett’s incredible debut follows David Fuffman, a comics-obsessed freshman at Princeton ...The novel switches between the perspectives of David, or Infrared, and his old high-school crush, Haley Roth, also at Princeton. As their group grows into a ridiculous cult, and it becomes unclear what is real, there are numerous staggeringly imaginative set-pieces involving a striking cast of characters. With a preapocalyptic setting like that of Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story and soaked in hallucinogens in a way that recalls Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus! Trilogy, Nemett’s wondrously fresh novel positively bursts with charm, heart, and invention.

Adam Nemett’s debut novel features a group of disillusioned and dissolute Princeton students, groping around for their place in the universe ... We Can Save Us All—true to the others in the PrivilegePunk, TrustFundDark genre—is a hard read, using America’s 'best and brightest' to describe some of society’s darkest and most self-indulgent impulses. It is a timely and horrifying look into youth radicalisation; the power of the narratives that we assign ourselves. Nemett’s clever use of the third person allows a sense of remove and of feigned objectivity. This adds to the overall sense of the reader as the ultimate judge of the characters and their actions. We Can Save Us All takes us under the skin of 'heroes'—to ask questions about intent, purpose, and salvation as a whole. It is a deeply uncomfortable read, but all the more powerful for it.

Adam Nemett's debut novel We Can Save Us All deserves points for ambition. In just under four hundred pages he's folded in the campus novel, socialist activism, toxic masculinity, psychopharmacology, communalism, American mythology, the anthropocene, and the apocalypse ... So Nemett's focus is on plot, not character. His charming and conversational prose creates a headlong momentum, ideal for the USV's elaborate pranks as they evolve into cinematic, off-the-rails spectacles ... Nemett nods to the off-campus world through the reports of increasingly frequent and destructive natural disasters. These stakes feel somewhat removed from the characters’ actions and reality ... The book maddens in other ways. A date rape occurs two-thirds through the book and is never addressed. 'Faggot' is used twice in dialogue without justification or excuse. The light personal consequences of the USV's pranks scream class privilege ... A judicious edit would have solved many (but not all) of these problems. They don't sink the novel. It retains its energy and wit. The flaws highlight the circa-now challenges in using the campus novel as an armature for global themes.

Hey, what if a book was like Fight Club but instead of fights, everyone takes a heroic dose of drugs and plays superhero? This ambitious, half-cracked debut about Generation Z students struggling with a bent concept of the future in the midst of a slow apocalypse is an ambitious but acidic take on superhero stories and the price of growing up ... While it never quite finds its balance between social satire and youth in rebellion, it’s still a confident, visceral debut that’s worth the ride ... A timely fable of generational angst armed with that old punk ethos: no future.

In Nemett’s imaginative debut, a group of troubled Princeton students gather off campus in the near future at the Egg, an off-campus research building named for its domelike shape ... As blizzards, trade wars, and actual warfare ravage the world, the residents of the Egg adopt superhero personas in an attempt to do good by creating a 90-day 'spectacle' of events meant to combat evil. As their collective, called the Unnamed Supersquadron of Vigilantes, grows more ambitious, both in their actions and in their public profile, they’re joined by Haley Roth, David’s high school drug dealer and current crush, with whom he shares an uneasy history. Fiery, funny, and fearless, Haley is the real standout of the novel—especially compared to the mopey David—and readers will wish she’d been given narrative precedence and a less clichéd backstory. Still, Nemett’s refreshing and high-energy novel has the heart and moral tension of a superhero story and the growing pains of a bildungs- roman.