be more chill is about loser high school student, jeremy heere, and the quantum computer he puts into his brain to make himself cool and go out with christine caniglia. i heard about it because it was adapted into a musical i was into in high school.

the musical is better. it’s so much better. it has some moments that i question a little, but nowhere near as many as the book. i do also think that the musical has a better grasp on slang and homophobia for 2018 than the book does for 2004.

there are a couple things i like. first, ive been in a reading slump, and this was easy to read. it’s very fast paced, its characters are pretty surface level, and i know a lot of the major beats. that also added a layer of enjoyment (pretty much the only layer of enjoyment): i could do the dicaprio pointing meme when i recognised something from the musical. the concept is interesting, it’s like. very low sci-fi. and i did like how the squip talked to jeremy and how that was integrated in the narration.

the main bone i have to pick with this book is the misogyny. girls (they’re not women, they are sixteen) are often called “females,” which is dehumanising, obviously. sure. michael calls it out at the end a little, but michael is also pretty gross. just because that moment of criticism is there, it doesn’t actually seem that this book criticises misogyny in any meaningful way. it reinforces it. christine is maybe the best depiction of any of the girls, like she has hobby and interiority to some extent, but she feels a lot more like an archetype, and a foil to chloe and the popular girls who are willing to have sex with jeremy. this frustrates me because, girls as sexual objects, but also they aren’t depicted as having lives or interests.

also, other than the ending (i guess, but not really), jeremy’s schemes work out for him way too much. he should have crashed a car and i will not elaborate. also i don’t like him!! treat people as people!!! i don’t care ab a teenage boy’s masturbation habits!!!

there are a few parts that feel like relevant commentary with how much ai has become integrated into our lives, but i can’t recommend this book because of how gross it feels. if you’re into the musical, listen to the album again.