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Summary
Summary
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
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Who wouldn't want an ingestible super-computer-in-a-pill designed to make the person who swallows it way cooler than he or she ever was? When shy, dorky Jeremy Heere learns of the device-known as a squip-he knows he must do whatever it takes (in his case, steal and sell a portion of his unpleasant aunt's Beanie Baby collection) to raise the $600 necessary to get one. Soon the squip is installed in his brain, dispensing such crucial nuggets as "You have to talk as per rap-slash-hip-hop, the dominant music of youth culture" and "Step one is that you stop pacing and get a new shirt, Jeremy." All this is in service of his ultimate goal: winning the affections of choosy and self-assured Christine. Vizzini (Teen Angst? Naaah...) gives a fresh twist to familiar messages about being loyal to one's friends and true to oneself, thanks to the over-the-top plot and tangy narrative. Readers grappling with their own social status will appreciate the fact that while the notion of coolness may be satirized here, it's certainly not demonized or dismissed. Although the squip's advice is not infallible, Jeremy's life really does improve once he polishes his social skills. Semi-cool, would-be cool and even cool readers are likely to be entertained by the wry, nearly anthropological observations of the high school caste system, from a 23-year-old author who, as a teenager, wrote for the New York Press and the New York Times Magazine. Ages 13-up. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(High School) In a teenage boy's fairy tale come true, ""serious dork"" Jeremy discovers a pill that actually makes you cool. Once swallowed, the squip, a microcomputer, tells him how to walk, talk, dress, and perform in social -- and sexual -- situations. In a matter of hours, Jeremy goes from masturbating in chat rooms to hooking up with the ""Hottest Girls in School."" And yet Jeremy longs for his one true love, a bright girl named Christine, and the squip plots a strategy to win her. As in all teen romance, however, malfunction in a crucial moment is preprogrammed, and Jeremy is left to his own devices for recovery. The wish-fulfillment fantasy is sure entertainment; Jeremy's first party is American Pie-worthy, with plenty of sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll (actually squip-approved ""rap-slash-hip-hop, the dominant music of youth culture""), and, of course, vomit. Despite suggested warnings to the contrary, the benefits of social climbing appear to far outweigh the costs -- Jeremy's disaster with Christine seems salvageable in the end. Vizzini's invention is a clever device for exploring high school social strata and the thinly veiled code for success; those ready for a more complex treatment of materialism and mind control can graduate to M. T. Anderson's Feed. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A self-centered teenager swallows a supercomputer to make himself cool in this strangely amoral piece. Fifteen-year-old Jeremy is tired of being abused by popular kids. He's also tired of Internet porn; he wants real girls. So he buys an underground pill called a "squip," a supercomputer that lodges in his brain and tells him which shirts to buy and which girls to approach--and to ditch his old best friend. He follows the directions and is befriended, or at least calmly tolerated, by the cool kids. He eventually gets rid of the squip, but this is more because it stops doing its job (his favorite girl now hates him) than because Jeremy gains any sense of personal responsibility. There's no narrative comment on whether coolness is really the best aspiration or whether girls are real people. An interesting if unwieldy premise technologically, but diluted by the lack of character growth. (Science fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
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 2004 Booklist