Mr. Books actually picked up this book for me on a trip to the dollar store. He also got me a book light and a bottle of Godiva Dark Chocolate Mocha. Isn’t he a sweetheart?! I was excited when I saw the book because it had caught my attention somewhere before but I had never pursued the interest. Plus he only paid a dollar for it brand new! Can’t get better than that.

In Be More Chill, Jeremy Heere is a bit of a loser. He gets picked on and pathetically marks all of his embarrassments on Humiliation Sheets. Then one day he learns about a squip, Sony’s latest invention involving a nanocomputer that can be ingested by pill. The squip will then advise you how to dress, how to act, how to get girls and essentially how to be cool. Forking over $500 in the back of a shoe store, Jeremy finally gets his hands on one.

I like the idea behind Be More Chill, and Vizzini has a good voice. If I were ten years younger and still a teenager, this is exactly the kind of eccentric novel that I would dig. The problem is that I can’t, in good conscience, recommend it to most young adults because of the nature of content. Even though Jeremy never actually has any sex, there’s certainly an unbridled sexual layer that is common to teenage boys. There’s internet porn, drugs and profanity. I could possibly overlook these if there were some sort of moral to this story, but there are no eye-opening endings here. No, this isn’t one that I will mail off to my wholesome thirteen year old sister-in-law.

As an adult reader, there’s not quite enough character development. The novel sort of quickly squeezes by and then it’s done. In a way I feel as though there could have been so much more, but a part of me also liked the stark way it played out. I could only recommend this book to a small audience of teens who are at least 16, less than innocent and have a slightly quirky nature like myself. When I find one of those, I’ll pass this one along.