Be More Chill

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Of course, getting everything you wish for, especially because of a supercomputer, is fraught with disaster and never turns out quite like you think it will. I mean, does anything turn out well when you let a digestible supercomputer take control of your life? I don't consider this graphic novel as a substitute for the original, because the original is a literary masterpiece, but I would let my 10 year old kid read it as a primer, if I had one

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. I think this book requires a certain type of mindset going into it to actually enjoy it. That mindset would be to not take this book seriously at all. This book is definitely meant to be taken satirically. If you take this book at face value that means you'll be horrified by how vulgar this supposed "Young Adult" book is. This book is filled with complex issues such as drugs, partying, alcohol, sexism, stealing, and a whole barrage of other mature themes that I don't want to get into. They bring distinctive singing voices to their parts, particularly Michael and Jeremy. Some songs work better than others and the best of Joe Iconis’s lyrics contain fantastically funny lines alongside bathos. The score has a deliberately dissonant sound – with edges of emo and rap – that conveys a high-pitched teen angst, while Alex Basco Koch’s graphic projections distort or light up garishly to mirror Jeremy’s altered mind states.The groundbreaking story by New York Times best-selling author Ned Vizzini that inspired the Tony-nominated Broadway musical–now adapted in a graphic novel by #1 New York Times best-selling author David Levithan. Jeremy Heere is your average high school dork. Day after day, he stares at beautiful Christine, the girl he can never have, and dryly notes the small humiliations that come his way. Until the day he learns about the “squip.” A pill-sized supercomputer that you swallow, the squip is guaranteed to bring you whatever you most desire in life. By instructing him on everything from what to wear, to how to talk and walk, the squip transforms Jeremy from geek to the coolest guy in class. Soon he is friends with his former tormentors and has the attention of the hottest girls in school. But Jeremy discovers that there is a dark side to handing over control of your life–and it can have disastrous consequences. For now, we would like to thank you for your ongoing support and patience in these uncertain times. But Jeremy never pauses to consider the fact that he is handing control over his life to the squip. The consequences of this may not be what he bargained for.

What is just terrible about this book is that the author portrays and discusses girls and women as objects.And then he gets a “squip”—a pill-sized supercomputer that you swallow. The squip transforms Jeremy into a confident, handsome heartthrob. It tells him how to dress, how to act, what to say, and whom to avoid. Suddenly Jeremy is cool and can have any girl he wants—but he still only wants Christine. On one hand it curtails #book!squip's character development, which is one of the most fascinating aspects of the original novel for me. After a successful off-Broadway run, Be More Chill graduated to Broadway itself in 2019 and swiftly received a Tony Award nomination for Best Original Score. The arrival of the production in London earlier this year has only seen its impact grow, with the young cast portraying the challenges of growing up in the digital age. Jeremy Heere is a typical high school geek. Unable to socialize with other people, he instead chooses to analyze their reactions to him, tallying up insults and laughter on self-made Humiliation Sheets.

Be More Chill was a really funny book. This book is about a boy named Jeremy, who is the stereotypical geek in high school. Jeremy has a crush on a girl and he wants to become cool. Then he figures out a way to become cool. The way to become cool is to ingest a micromachine called a squip. The squip lives inside your brain and tells exactly what you need to say to sound cool in any given situation.

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Be More Chill is based on Ned Vizzini's 2004 novel of the same name. The Be More Chill musical was first seen in 2015 at the Two River Theater in New Jersey. But it was thanks to music streamers that Be More Chill gained popularity, with hits like "Michael in the Bathroom" taking over the social media platform, Tumblr. The ends of both pieces are so different you'd think that the writers of the musical didn't finish reading the book and just decided to make their own ending. The ending of the musical is a lot better, though. The squip is actually seen as evil in the musical, as it should be. In the book, the squip is just like "Hey, if you want to get rid of me, no biggie. Drink some Mountain Dew: Code Red™" and everyone is happy to pretend there was no harm done. In the musical, Jeremy tries with everything he has to shut it off because it's, you know, evil. However, the musical has the same problem of Hey! Squip's gone! Now I don't have to deal with any consequences!!

The Squip, after an interaction with one girl says to Jeremy, "GOOD JOB. THAT'S THE WAY TO DO IT. NEVER EVER BE MEAN TO GIRLS, UNLESS THEY'RE UGLY. [...] SHE'LL TELL HER FRIENDS HOW GOOD YOU WERE AND WE CAN BUILD FROM THERE." (152) Then the art style morphs between the two depending on who is dominating the narrative as the story's being told, until 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? The way that mental health is treated is abhorrent. When Jeremy encounters a girl who is possibly bulimic, and has mental health issues, he calls her “weird” and does nothing. The girl herself is never seen or mentioned again. The premise of this book is essentially that a high-school aged boy, Jeremy, who longs after a particular girl and has low self-esteem about his persona, comes across a small pill-sized supercomputer called a "squip" that can act as a instructional guide on how to behave and what to do to accomplish one's goals. Using this, he is able to be considered "cool" and be among other popular teenagers who he once admired.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. Imagine being controlled by a computer that talks in your head. Well you may think this is impossible, but somehow Jeremy manages to get this "computer" called a squip. Why? You ask. This so called computer gets you whatever you desire, at least that's what Jeremy thinks. "Going out. At least now i know which stage I'm up against. I'm getting prepped. I think I might have a shot," Jeremy says to himself. The only reason Jeremy is getting a squip is because of Christine. Be More Chill is the book that shows you the journey that Jeremy goes through. 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. I have such high expectations for this one, I'm gonna have to manage them before it comes out because I've had this vision of what a graphic novel adaption of this book would look like since I first read it.