Goodreads Review of Be More Chill

Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was pretty good.

I really like Ned Vizzini's writing; he has the incredibly sought-after ability to write in the voice of his character, like a pro.

Be More Chill is a story about Jeremy Heere, social misfit in Middle Borough High. He gets ahold of a squip, a tiny quantum computer you ingest to make you act Cool. And then, of course, everything backfires.

The beginning was really cool, the way Vizzini set it up. It moves along at a fast-enough rate that you aren't bored, and it was compelling enough to pick it up.

I know it's fiction and all, but.. I mean, this story doesn't really capture what 'cool' is. And I thought the moral of the story would be something along the lines of 'Being yourself is more cool than someone's idea of it'. But, um, no. I don't think that's anywhere within the covers.

I dunno... I don't really like how teenagers and "cool kids" are shown. God knows I'm not 'cool' or whatever, but that doesn't mean I'm silent and withdrawn from my peers. The characters were pretty 2D in this book, is all I'm saying. But hey, it was entertaining.

I just had to laugh at some of the thoughts of this troubled youth. Do kids actually strive this hard to be 'cool'? As a tenth grade girl, I can tell you that no one in my school thinks nonstop cussing, random pop culture references, and being disrespectful to people is 'cool'. Or.. at least no one I'm friends with. Usually we refer to those kids as "tools".

And Vizzini didn't exactly strive for realism when creating the females characters, either.

I guess I felt it lacked the proper conclusion and ending that a book ought to have, there wasn't enough closure with the characters. (view spoiler)[ Does his mom make him do therapy? Does he get Christine? Is Rich alright?  (hide spoiler)]

In any case, I was not nearly as impressed with Be More Chill as I was with It's Kind of a Funny Story, another YA Vizzini novel.

There's a few gratuitous parts if you ask me.. um, I don't like reading about (view spoiler)[ A teenage boy jerking off to internet porn. I know it happens, but really? You had to include two pages of this information into a story line (hide spoiler)]. Also there's some cussing, but after Jeremy gets the Squip it 'censors' the cusses (a__, d_m_, __it, and so on)


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