Be More Chill (Book Review)

A few months ago, I got in a discussion about how great it would be if there were a gong that went off in your head anytime an opportunity you were supposed to pursue arose. Literally the next day I saw Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini at Barnes & Noble, which has a very similar premise. The timing was so weird that there was a part of me was like, “Hey! It’s the destiny gong! I should read this!” I didn’t, though, since I’d previously read Vizzini’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story, which I didn’t particularly like. Later, I found out that there’s a musical adaptation of Be More Chill; I listened to it and liked it a lot. It’s not a new favorite, or anything, but it’s definitely catchy and enjoyable. I figured that the combination of ‘interesting concept’ and ‘was made into a musical’ would add up to ‘book I will love.’ Unfortunately, that’s not exactly true. The musical is better.

Summary: What’s it about?

Jeremy is a painfully uncool high school loser. He spends his days lusting after his beautiful classmate Christine and tallying his daily humiliations. Everything changes when his cool classmate Rich offers the secret to his success: a squip. A squip is a swallowable pill-sized computer that, once ingested, tells its host how to behave in order to be more chill and therefore more popular. With the squip in his corner, Jeremy finds his life and social circle changing dramatically.

Review: What’d I think?

Be More Chill poses some really interesting questions about technology dependence and the pressure to be cool, but in my opinion it fails to deliver on the promises made by the premise. The emotional core of the story is better rendered in the musical adaptation. I am more attached to the characters in their musical form than in the novel form despite the fact that I’ve never actually seen the musical (I’ve listened to the soundtrack, which is on YouTube).

My major problem with the novel is that none of the characters are likable. Unpopular Loser Jeremy and Chill Squip Jeremy are basically indistinguishable. I can’t figure out how I’m supposed to feel about Jeremy with his squip. Is he supposed to be different pre- and post-squip? Does the squip change him or just indulge his worst tendencies? I feel like it’s supposed to be the former, but the squip doesn’t change Jeremy all that much.

Obviously my expectations were skewed by the overtly evil musical squip, but book Jeremy’s squip is… not that insidious. Jeremy can turn it on and off at will. It can’t control him in any way. It’s cheerful and boosts Jeremy’s self esteem. The worst thing that it does is tell Jeremy to blow off Michael, but when Jeremy makes it clear that’s not something he’s willing to do, the squip just kind of shrugs and is like, okay, whatever; makes my job harder, but fine. It doesn’t like Michael, because Michael is so obviously uncool, but it doesn’t sabotage the friendship. In fact, in many instances, all the squip does is encourage Jeremy to act on his own impulses. The squip gets Jeremy to work out, stop masturbating, speak his mind, and tell his parents the truth. It also teaches him to drive.

The bad things that the squip does are all guided by Jeremy’s awfulness. The squip encourages Jeremy to act grossly towards girls when Jeremy indicates that all he wants is to get laid; when he clarifies that he wants a relationship with Christine and not just to have random sex, the squip changes its course of action to be decidedly less disgusting.

Michael and Christine both fare much better in the musical than in the novel. In the musical, Michael is an incredibly loyal best friend who is sweet and a little dorky but overall pretty awesome and ultimately heroic. In the book, he’s a nonentity with a fetish for Asian girls. Honestly, he does so little in the book that I’m confused why Vizzini bothered with him. He should be a true friend that Jeremy gives up for cool points, but instead he’s just… there. He is never emotionally affected by anything that happens to him. He just rolls with the punches, but it doesn’t feel  like a character trait as much as a lack of characterization. It’s hard to go from “Michael in the Bathroom” to “Michael is so busy having sex in a bathtub that he doesn’t notice anything going on around him.” As for Christine… in the musical she’s an over-earnest but charming theatre nerd. Book Christine is clearly supposed to be a person of substance, but that’s lost in her constant slutshaming and negativity and bizarre overreactions.

In general, I think that musical Michael is what book Michael is supposed to be and ditto for Christine. The writing just isn’t good enough to hit the right the emotional beats.

The secondary characters are weird as well. The theatre director’s dialogue is randomly punctuated with bizarre noises, and Jeremy’s dad is pointlessly idiotic. He walks around naked a lot and spouts homophobia and misogyny that goes largely unchallenged. Jeremy hates his dad, but the hate is mostly directed towards the fact that his dad is fat, not towards the more serious issues, like the fact that his dad seriously laments that it’s no longer a thing to take teenage sons to brothels to lose their virginity. What? What? And that’s just, like, background color.

My biggest issue with the novel, though, is the end. If you don’t want major spoilers, this would be a good time to bow out of this review.

What’s wrong with the end? MAJOR SPOILERS!

I could have gotten over all the issues mentioned above if the end of the novel had been stronger. For example, if Jeremy realized that he needed to take responsibility of his own life and decided on his own initiative to turn the squip off for good, I would have been happy. I also would’ve been happy if there was some reason to think that squips are bad. As it is, there’s no reason why squips aren’t a good idea.

When the squip suggests that Jeremy disrupt the musical and swear undying love to Christine, any idiot can see that it’s a terrible idea, but Jeremy does it anyway. When that unsurprisingly goes poorly, Jeremy is shocked and angry  because the squip did not work as advertised. The squip agrees and explains that it has depreciated. It suggests that Jeremy write an account of his experience so that he can give it to Christine. Hopefully that way Christine will understand that the disaster at the play was the squip’s fault, not Jeremy’s. Then, the squip says, it should be deactivated. It even explains to Jeremy how that is done (and writes the account for him).

Jeremy never overcomes his dependence on his squip. The only reason he gives it up is because it says he should; he follows its instructions to the very end. He doesn’t ever alter his goals. He spends the whole novel listening the squip in the hopes of winning Christine. At the end… he turns off the squip because the squip tells him to, because it’s his only hope of winning over Christine. It’s painfully anticlimactic. There’s no change or growth. Jeremy just keeps trudging down the same old path.

It also takes all the kick out of the house fire. In the musical Rich set a fire and he burned down the house because of some kind of conflict with his squip; either he tries to shut it off and it turns against him or it randomly goes berserk and malfunctions. Either way, the squip causes a lot of damage and nearly kills Rich. In the book, Rich’s squip isn’t active because Rich was on drugs. If Rich’s squip had been on, it might have stopped him from getting high, and he probably wouldn’t have burned down the house. It’s almost like… having a squip is a good thing.

Think about it. The squip never makes anyone do anything. It never makes suggestions that are contrary to the host’s wishes. It discourages drug use and masturbation and works to build confidence and create opportunities. Like anything else, it can be misused and overused, but for someone using it responsibly, it’s pretty dang awesome. Imagine keeping it off all the time except on occasions when you need the extra surge of confidence.

I feel like I am supposed to leave the book believing that Jeremy was wrong to get the squip and right to give it up. Instead, I think that squips are awesome and Jeremy only got into his mess because he is a selfish, misogynistic jerk who let the squip encourage him to lean into his worst tendencies. Having the squip be evil and try to enslave humanity as it does in the musical is arguably a little cheesy and over-the-top, but in my opinion it is a far better conclusion than the original.

What’s the verdict?

Be More Chill has a really interesting concept, but the execution is weak. The characters are almost universally unlikeable and problematic in one way or another, and the climax is anticlimactic and undercuts what I’m assuming are supposed to be the thematic points. It is unfortunately a sad combination of a good imagination and weak follow-through. It is still somewhat entertaining, but my recommendation is to skip the book and go straight to the musical if you’re interested in this one.

Report card.

Writing: C-          Plot: B          Characters: C-          Themes: C         Fun: B-         Final: C

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