Be More Chill: Swap the **** in your hand for a squip in your head

Product Information

It's weird for me to read this book because the main character, Jeremy, I really think is based on Ned. Jeremy says things about himself that I have heard Ned Vizzini talk about or seen him do. Of course, the book is a little bit sci-fi, so heaps of it are made up, but this book is a quite memoir-eque fictional novel in that it seems to be how Ned has worked out his high school dorkiness and confusion and angst about not getting with girls. Meet Jeremy ( Dear Evan Hansen's Will Roland), a nerdy high school outsider who just wants to be popular and get his manic pixie dream theater girl of a crush Christine (an over-the-top Stephanie Hsu) to kiss him. His first idea is to join the activity she likes, but the opening number, "More Than Survive," finds him singing, "It's a sign up sheet for the after-school play! It's a sign up sheet for getting called gay!" Suburban New Jersey WHEN I GET NERVOUS MY WHOLE FACE GOES RED DUDE, WEIGH THE OPTIONS CALMLY AND BE STILL A JUNIOR ON THE BUS IS KILLER WEAK BUT IF I WALK WHEN I ARRIVE I'M GONNA STRAIGHT-UP REEK AND MY BOXERS WILL BE BUNCHY AND MY PITS WILL LEAK OH, GAH, I WISH I HAD THE SKILL TO JUST BE FINE AND COOL AND CHILL It would be epic, but honestly I'm so stoked and really looking forward to any graphic novel of this thing actually existing!

The book follows Jeremy Heere, his crush on Christine Caniglia (who he only likes because of her looks, as he has never spoken to her), and his discovery and use of the SQUIP. Now that you get the main idea, let's start with my complaints.The interactions between Jeremy and the Squip concerning women is absolutely disgusting. It encourages cheating and the double standards concerning cheating; men are to be seen positively for cheating (Jake) and women who cheat are to be seen as “sluts” or “whores” (Elizabeth). This is demonstrated by every character in the book, except maybe Michael. In any case, the author writes every girl to be the same, and to respond to the same stimuli in exactly the same way which is just adding to the general idea that women are objects. Like the first part when it's just Jeremy it's illustrated in a western art style, and it seems like it's gonna be a superhero origin story. Then the SQUIP comes along and he's like an anime character brought to life. Surprise! You're reading a shonen-style manga! You've been reading a manga this whole time! Ned is actually a good friend of mine - we briefly dated when I was a sophomore in college and we've remained friends (the book is dedicated in-part to me, in fact) - but I swear to God, I'd love Be More Chill even if I'd pulled it off a shelf. The Other Palace’s contemporary, 312-seat main auditorium has hosted new productions, including Heathers the Musical in 2018, which won Best New Musical and Best Actress in a Musical at the WhatsOnStage Awards. The intimate 120-seat studio space downstairs is where artists and directors can thrash out new work and rehearse forthcoming productions, while elsewhere in the building are a well-reviewed bar and restaurant.

Okay, this review isn't formal in any way, so bear with me. For those not aware, this book has a corresponding musical of the same name. Here's what I'm going to do: I'm doing a whole Musical vs. Book segment at the end of my review, so if you just want to know what I think about the book itself, just ignore the last part of my review. If you only care about my thoughts on how the musical differs from the book, feel free to skip to the end. That being said, here are my thoughts on the book. Jeremy, the protagonist is a normal high school nerd that goes through life being teased and writing it down on his humiliation sheet. He happens to like Christine, but the problem is that Christine is already going out with somebody and Christine herself is hard to get. Jeremy hears about squip, a pill-size supercomputer that you swallow and he gets it right away. The squip teaches him how to get girls, do his homework, and even helps him remember his shakespear lines. This supercomputer helps him change from the weirdest nerd in the school to the coolest kid in the school. But is the squip really as perfect as it seems? There is also some lesson that the Squip gives him, instructing him that women and girls are attracted to pheromones. Once you get with a girl, other girls will come to you and want you. -- Again, this is terribly problematic, because it states that every girl will want to have sexual advances made towards her because of the boy's prolific history. Then the Squip gives this comment, "HOW DO YOU THINK GUYS WITH GIRLFRIENDS BECOME SO ATTRACTIVE TO OUTSIDE FEMALES THAT THEY'RE FORCED TO CHEAT WITH?" (155). Now, this is suggesting that there is justification in infidelity on the male's part because of females' "innate" attraction.From what I can glean from my first listen of the album, the plot of the musical was tweaked in several ways. I'm going to read the CD booklet to find out exactly what I've not been hearing. Regardless, some of the songs are catchy, and I can always fix them when I sing along in the future. Another thing to note is that Jeremy's love interest is not as sexually active as other girls, and is often described to be different than the other girls he meets whom he respects very little, once again, enforcing the hypocritical view of sexuality between the genders. Whenever Jeremy doesn’t want to do something sexual, he is referred to as gay by the Squip. This is further used as a general insult throughout the book.

None of it has the relatable charm of More Than Survive, or the funny moments from Be More Chill (Part One), or the slow realization of Upgrade, the bone-crushing sadness of Michael In The Bathroom, the relatability of The Smartphone Hour (Rich Set A Fire) (lets be honest, we all know people like that), the creepy chill of The Pitiful Children and The Play, as well as the beautiful ending of Voices In My Head. Its also cuts out a lot of objectionable content (like references to drugs, pornography, and self harm) so the story is more suitable for younger audiences.

Critics' Reviews

Now, onto my second major complaint. The Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor. The SQUIP. The SQUIP (or squip) is the turning point of the book. The squip's objective is to take an uncool person and make him cool. It makes him be more chill. It does this by implanting itself into the subject's brain (via a travel through the bloodstream after the subject injects the pill that contains the squip). After the squip is in the brain of the uncool person, it feeds the person instructions on how to speak and act. This is a problem. The squip says that having a predatory attitude toward women, disrespecting your parents, and abandoning your friends is cool. Jeremy takes the squip, listens to all of its instructions and you can probably guess where it goes from there. I was hoping that this would break that formula. I was hoping that the attempts of hipness would be, idk, groundbreaking. I didn't want a freakin' modern day after school special. I don’t know what to think about this book. I want to think positively about it because I really like the musical, but it’s so different and there are multiple issues with this book. It follows Jeremy who is in high school and has extremely low self esteem, and a massive crush on a girl called Christine. Be More Chill takes place in Metuchen, New Jersey. It is written in the first person, from the perspective of high school student Jeremiah “Jeremy” Heere. Jeremy attends the fictional Middle Borough High School and is considered a loser by many of his peers; the popular girls have no interest in him, and he is constantly bullied. Jeremy's best friend is the music-loving Michael Mell. They sit together at lunch and talk about Jeremy's attempts at wooing his longtime crush, Christine Caniglia. Jeremy is tired of being a loser and hopes to find a way to change this. His main goal in life is to get Christine to notice him, then date her. Jeremy plans to implement his plans as he and Christine both practice for their school play, Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. His advances are slow-going at first. Michael tells Jeremy that he's vaguely heard of a pill that can improve someones life; he thinks it's called a "script" and he suspects his brother used one to get a high SAT score. Then the art style morphs between the two depending on who is dominating the narrative as the story's being told, until