Be More Chill: A Novel [Hardcover]

Ned Vizzini (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 2004

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 finds out about the "squip." This pill-sized supercomputer, when swallowed, 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 Supergeek into one of the most popular guys in class. Soon he is friends with his former tormentors and has the attention of the hottest girls in school. But Jeremy eventually discovers that there is also a dark side to having a computer inside your brain-and it can have disastrous consequences. Searingly witty and surprisingly poignant-this novel heralds the arrival of a hot new talent in YA fiction. Ned Vizzini began writing for New York Press at the age of fifteen. At seventeen he was asked to write a piece for New York Times Magazine, which led to the publication Teen Angst? Naah . . . , his autobiography of his years at a New York City high school, which was selected as a Booksense 76 Pick. Now twenty-two, Ned lives in Brooklyn, New

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up–This wacky, irreverent novel stars an uncouth, smart, nerdy, but sympathetic antihero, Jeremy Heere. The teen actually keeps Humiliations Sheets on which he tallies the number and types of affronts that he encounters in his daily life at his New Jersey high school and finds solace in the evenings viewing Internet porn. When the girl he secretly loves is cast opposite him in a school play, he decides to find a way to break the mold he's built around himself so that she will understand and reciprocate his admiration. Buying an extreme bit of illegal nanotechnology in the back room of a Payless shoe store, Jeremy swallows the "squip," which embeds itself in his brain and advises him on all the cool things to say and do to impress Christine. Vizzini has devised a hilarious alternate reality, very close to the one available to Jeremy's real peers–Eminem is a pop-culture presence (although he has recently died in this world). The squip malfunctions when Jeremy takes Ecstasy (not only miscuing Jeremy but also defaulting to Spanish), and so on. There are genuine and serious issues of morality folded into this story, including Jeremy's dilemma of how to make himself both attractive and sincere in Christine's perception. Like Janet Tashjian's The Gospel According to Larry (Holt, 2001), this novel has substance as well as flash, and lots of appeal to bright teens. Although it is literary and funny, the blatant sexual themes and use of profanity may limit its acceptability in schools.–Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 9-12. Jeremy Heere, a classic high-school dork, transforms himself into one of the social elite by swallowing a "squip," a supercomputer in pill form that communicates directly with his brain. The squip tells him what to say and how to act, and soon he is hanging with the popular crowd and getting physical with the "hottest" girls. But the squip's technology is imperfect and leads Jeremy disastrously astray in extremely public circumstances. Vizzini, like Jonah Black in the Black Book series, focuses on the plight of the lovesick nerd and also employs a Web spin-off (Google squip and see what emerges). Note that masturbation is very directly addressed, in bitingly funny terms, and both sex and substance abuse occur but not in a flattering light. Readers will identify and groan with embarrassment for Jeremy, whose candidly uncool voice rings very true. Debbie Carton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Miramax; First Edition edition (June 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786809957
• ISBN-13: 978-0786809950
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #598,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ned Vizzini began writing for The New York Press at the age of fifteen. At nineteen, he had his first book published, Teen Angst? Naaah.... Ned is also the author of Be More Chill, the first young adult novel ever chosen as a Today Show Book Club pick, as well as one of Entertainment Weekly's Top Ten Books for 2004. Ned lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The drawbacks of technology, September 10, 2004

By 

Teenreads.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Be More Chill: A Novel (Hardcover)

Hearing voices is never a good thing, unless the voices are coming from your squip. No, not script --- squip. Google "squip" and you'll come up with a boring kill-the-space-aliens game and some information about a supercomputer the size of an aspirin, currently illegal to use. Swallow the computer and become cool. Get all the girls, or guys. Dress sharp. Learn to flirt and drive, and generally be more chill.

Jeremy Heere, hopeless nerd, wants to date beautiful Christine Caniglia. He knows she's way out of his league, until he acquires a squip, which guides him through a physical and mental transformation. Following the squip's instructions on how to dress, speak, kiss, act and exercise, Jeremy rises above his geek status and becomes --- dare he say it --- popular.

This, of course, comes with a few problems. Computers, for all their quantum mechanics, can't quite get the hang of human emotions, like love and friendship. They can't understand why Jeremy wants to take his geeky best friend Michael to a party featuring the hottest girls in school. And while they may tell Jeremy what to say to Christine, they can only calculate so many possible outcomes of the conversation. Jeremy's squip eventually leads him to disaster, and he has to figure out what he's going to do all on his own.

Sarcastic, sexy (well, Jeremy wishes there was sex) and hilarious, this thought-provoking book is not to be missed by anyone who has ever wanted the impossible. The larger-than-life characters fit in perfectly with the idea of a pill-sized computer running Jeremy's life at Leni Lenape High School. This book, however, is far from fluffy. It raises some important questions as to how far one person will go to impress another and the depth of honesty needed in human relationships.

--- Reviewed by Carlie Webber

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Typical High School Dork?, June 22, 2005

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Be More Chill: A Novel (Hardcover)

Jeremy is your typical high school dork. He is beaten up, picked on, and keeps a list of all the times he is made fun of on pre-made "humiliation sheets." And, as with every teen-age loser, the one girl he wants, he will never be able to get.

But then, at the Halloween dance, he meets Rich, who shows Jeremy what a technological miracle, called a squip, can do for him. Simply stated, a squip enables a guy to get any girl, and a lot more. Jeremy finds that he is only $500 away from total coolness and getting that one girl, Christine.

Ned Vizzini is a Gordon-Korman-to-be. The style in which he writes is so funny and easy to read, the only time that I paused was between the fits of laughter I was suffering through. I was with Jeremy as he explored this new, chill world of parties and girls, in his quest to be cool.

Vizzini practically glued my hands to the book and my butt to the chair because I wanted to see what Jeremy's little squip would do next as the final step in winning Christine.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a dynamic novel!, June 22, 2004

By 

Felicia Sullivan (New York, ny United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Be More Chill: A Novel (Hardcover)

Reviewed by Steve Hansen for Small Spiral Notebook

Squip is the hook; the dynamo that powers Be More Chill. It's what separates Ned Vizzini's tale of dork-cum-cool guy from your other, similar, young adult fare.

Jeremy Heere compounds his dorkdom by documenting each slight onto forms he's coined 'Humiliation Sheets,' ticking off every snicker, snotty comment and a number of other embarrassments he suffers daily at the hands of his peers. No explanation is given for the purpose of these sheets other than to serve as some kind of proof of their originator's dillweed-ness. They seem to be an adolescent substitute, of sorts, for self-flagellation. Heere is a loser, indeed.

Enter the aforementioned 'squip' (a nanocomputer perched in the brain of anyone who takes the 'magic' pill), and Jeremy goes from social pariah to student body messiah. He ascends the social strata all the way to the pinnacle of cool, thanks to his execution of the instructions given him by the voice inside his head. His squip directs him to drop his dearest, best friend Michael for political expediency's sake (how can he remain friends with somebody now below his modicum of cool?), and advises Michael to hook up with the popular chicks in order to send Christine, the girl he really likes, into a jealous tizzy. Is this computer thing Machiavellian or what? The question is can Jeremy live with himself now that he's gone from likable geek to scheming ass?

This novel will appeal most to those still in high school or a few years removed, thus its 'Young Adult' designation. Not to say Vizzini's writing doesn't have some universal appeal, it's just that high school 'problems' are so petty, insubstantial and contrived to anybody who's had to survive for a sustained amount of time in the real world. The tragedies of acne or someone's refusal to return a greeting in the hall seems pretty small when weighed against a home foreclosure are the scourge of a bad credit rating.

That said the squip gimmick has landed Vizzini's book a movie deal. And as you read Be More Chill, you may find yourself wondering if this wasn't the author's (perhaps unconscious) intention all along. What Hollywood executive could turn down American Pie with a Keanu Reeve's voiceover? Whether on the page or the silver screen, Be More Chill will entertain high school kids nationwide, and, no doubt, a few of their parents.