Be More Chill

Title: Be More Chill
Author: Ned Vizzini
ISBN: 0060747811 (Audio Book)
Reader: Jesse Eisenberg

Plot Summary: Jeremy Heere is just an average teenage boy, pining after a girl who doesn't know he exists - until he hears about a tiny internal supercomputer that can help you learn how to be cool, and win over any girl you want. This computer, known as a "squip," does everything it promises on the label at first, but Jeremy soon finds out that being the "cool" guy the squip wants him to become isn't everything he initially thought it would be.


Critical Evaluation: This book impressed me in a number of ways, not the least of which was that it refused to give the protagonist the "happy ending" the reader expects, although it does end on a hopeful note. The literary device of replacing expletives with the word "blank," although it made contextual sense, struck me as a bit mannered and precious, and characters other than the protagonist were not quite as three-dimensional as he was, particularly the female characters. That said, this book is funny, intelligent, and innovative with material that could have been boring and predictable, and is well-narrated by Jesse Eisenberg, who provides just the right level of contrast between the hapless protagonist and his omniscient squip alter ego.

Reader's Annotation: If you could take something to make yourself cooler, would you do it? Jeremy Heere, an average New York high school student with a crush on an oblivious classmate, gets his hands on a tiny supercomputer designed to do just that, but the results are not what he expected.

About the Author: Ned Vizzini was born in 1981 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York. He attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, during which time he started writing articles for the New York Press; these articles were later collected in the book Teen Angst? Naaaaah.... He attended Hunter College, and was briefly hospitalized for suicidal depression in 2004, an experience he later fictionalized in the novel It's Kind of a Funny Story. He lives and writes in Manhattan, where he frequently speaks about his work.

Genre: Fiction, Science Fiction, Romance, Comedy

Curriculum Ties: Computer Science

Booktalking Ideas:

Hook: The squip: could it happen?
Approach: Plot and character-based
Ideas for Booktalk: Vizzini gets very detailed about the evolution of the squip, including upgrades and the current versions, although he is less detailed about its specific mechanics. Could such a computer be created, and if so what would its implications be? Would it become a black market item like in the book, or go legit and simply have illegal hacks available? Would there be drawbacks and dangers to a computer intended for internal use, and if so what would they be? The squip serves a single purpose (i.e. to make the user cool); could a tiny supercomputer perform more than one task in this respect?

Hook: Jeremy finally gets up the nerve to tell the girl of his dreams how he feels, but her reaction is not what he had hoped.
Approach: Scene-based.
Ideas for Booktalk: Compare to I Love You, Beth Cooper, where the protagonist does not get rejected outright. What does Jeremy have to do to make amends, and how does the book show that he miscalculated? Note that the book doesn't guarantee that what he does to apologize will work, or that he will be forgiven. No "magic pill" to become cool. Being cool perhaps not what it's cracked up to be. Discuss how this outcome differs from typical Hollywood endings, and why the author chose this way over others.

Reading Level/Interest Age: Grades 9+

Challenge Issues: Drug use, offensive language. The majority of the offensive language in this book is blocked out with the term "blank," so this may only be an issue at the beginning. However, the main character not only takes drugs at a party, but considers this behavior to be normal. That said, using the drug (in this case, Ecstasy) in conjunction with the squip causes it to malfunction, and Jeremy is left to fend for himself while "rolling." It could be argued that this scene does not show dire enough consequences for recreational drug use; however, I would reply to these charges that the protagonist finds he cannot mix drugs with squips, and that drug use therefore, in a sense, hinders his progress towards becoming cool.


Why I Chose This Book: I often wished as a teenager that there was a pill I could take to become cool. This book demonstrates, with intelligence and humor, the drawbacks of trying to become something one is not via outside means. I appreciated also that it did not give the reader a predictable happy ending, but instead ended on an ambiguous, yet still hopeful, note. One of Vizzini's other books, It's Kind of a Funny Story, has had the movie rights optioned; I can only hope that this one will eventually as well.