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

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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. Why is Jeremy so mean to Michael? And why did Michael just accept all of Jeremy’s crap? At some point Jeremy should have realised that the Squip is just a piece of technology and Michael has been his best friend for many years and treating him like dirt is just going to make him leave. Of course, it’s all explained that Michael realised what was going on, and there were no hard feelings, but that just takes the onus off of Jeremy completely. Jeremy wasn’t a bystander, he chose to do what the Squip told him, but the book ends up treating him like he was a bystander. The SQUIP is booting up for action again! After a London premiere at The Other Palace, Be More Chill comes to the West End in 2021. Be More Chill is at the Shaftesbury Theatre. 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.

Nobody pays much attention to Jeremy in high school, other than to make fun of or spread rumors about him. He's so used to this occurring that he keeps score of the insults and jibes he sustains in each class. The only person who really talks to him is his best friend and fellow misfit, Michael. 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.Every character in this book "slutshames" or shames girls for being sexually active or having multiple partners -- this is a serious matter. 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?

On one hand it curtails #book!squip's character development, which is one of the most fascinating aspects of the original novel for me. 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? Then the art style morphs between the two depending on who is dominating the narrative as the story's being told, until 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.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. 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. Jeremy has a crush on Christine, but of course she’s dating a popular boy and Jeremy will never have a chance with her. He can barely sustain a conversation with her half the time. But somehow he hopes that things might change someday. So here’s the premise: teenage boy is awkward, nerdy, uncool. He hears about a pill, a “squip,” that is a microcomputer that will give him instructions on how to be cool (or “more chill”). He gets a squip, becomes cool, and eventually the squip fails - its technology isn’t perfect yet. 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.

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. 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. 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! 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.At the end of the novel, as you might expect, the boy sheds the chip/pill from his system and feels regretful of his actions. However, this isn't brought on by the realization of his terrible treatment of girls or his old friends, but by a freak accident that injures his new friends. And, he regrets the decision of taking the chip because his crush ultimately rejects him. You might have been thinking - wait, wait, as YAF shouldn’t this book have ended with the boy realizing he’s better off as himself, without the aid of a microcomputer telling him exactly what to say? No. No, that’s not the moral: the moral is wait to buy yourself the exact piece of technology that will make imperfect-you more perfect so that you might have money, friends, and sex.