Be More Chill

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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. 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 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, 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?

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. 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. The main differences between the book and the musical are that the SQUIP has different agendas in each version. Vizzini’s SQUIP is a Japanese bootleg that hasn’t been released in the US because of the potential safety hazards. It genuinely wants to help Jeremy but realizes that it has messed up badly. Musical SQUIP wants to take over people’s minds and create a universe of ultimate control, like the plant Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors. Because the SQUIP is worse, Jeremy and Michael can behave better in the end. This venue has additional Covid-19 safety measures in place to ensure the health and well-being of the staff, performers, and guests. 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.Jake Dillinger: Christine's love interest at the beginning of the book, constantly having sex with hot people.

End verdict: I think I (kind of) enjoyed this book because I love the musical. Had it not been for the musical, I probably would not have finished, let alone enjoyed, the book. It would be epic, but honestly I'm so stoked and really looking forward to any graphic novel of this thing actually existing!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) 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 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. There are some aspects of the novel that couldn't be conveyed outside of text, but it's so clearly inspired by comic books and manga that it begs for an graphic novel adaption. Disney Books and Storygram Tours provided me a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available! After a run-in with cool bully Rich ( Spring Awakening's Gerard Canonico), Jeremy is told he can be popular, too, he just needs to ingest a supercomputer in pill-sized form called "The Squip" (a funny, Keanu Reeves-esque Jason Tam) to instruct him on his every move. Naturally, things go south fast.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 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. If I had not known the musical was based on the book, all I would have remarked is the similar names and the similar description (Loser High Schooler takes supercomputer pill to make him cool), and NOTHING ELSE.

I've been listening to the Be More Chill original musical cast recording and enjoying the sound of the music while not necessarily understanding all the words yet. (Living with me is a hellish experience of hearing songs sung with the lyrics I think I heard or improving the lyrics to what I think they should be.) Since I probably won't have a chance to see the actual show for quite a while yet, I thought I'd read the original book to help me understand the plot. Also, there's a graphic novel adaptation I want to read next. 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. I've very much been looking forward to this graphic novel adaptation of one of my favorite stories. It's a pretty straightforward retelling and I love that the art style embraces the wannabe-grunge of the 2004-era setting.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. 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.