Review #28 - Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini

Be More Chill is a book about Jeremy Heere who is at the bottom of the social ladder (side note - there are so many books and films about people at the bottom of the social ladder - what about people in the middle?). He gets a mini supercomputer implanted in his brain so he can become cool and get the girl.

Be More Chill is written by the same author who wrote It's Kind of a Funny Story. I expected this to be a book on depression as I know Ned Vizzini struggled with depression all his life and killed himself last year. It wasn't at all. It was about social status and getting through High School and it was very different to what I was expecting which I really enjoyed. It was funny and observational and just fun to read.

Be More Chill was pretty hard to put down. It really is everything that is wonderful about Ned Vizzini in one book and that was wonderful. It just had a great plot idea and the squip had wonderful dialogue. There was a lot of social commentary hidden beneath the surface: how hard it is to be popular in high school, what computers and modern society are doing to us, and why popularity isn't the be all and end all.

I did feel it was quite gender specific which I did find a shame because of this infatuation with a girl and getting a guy to like you is so different for getting a girl to like you that it locked me out a bit. The rest was really accessible though, so sorry for my criticisms. I found it accessible even though senior school sounds really different to High School.

I would recommend this if:
You loved It's Kind of a Funny Story
You want a book about High School popularity with a twist
You want a book that's funny and accessible.

I gave this four stars.


P.S. My friend Nina did an amazing book haul which you should totally check out.

Review #2 - It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

I was nervous before reading this book.

Last year round April I had read a lot of depression books by accident like The Bell Jar, The Virgin Suicides, everything I read contained suicide in it, Every Day, A Working Theory of Love. I didn't like this. I just went off these books because I didn't want to read about suicide over and over again. So I knew Ned Vizzini had recently passed away and I was scared this would be another Bell Jar.

It was beautiful. It wasn't depressing, it was uplifting. It gave me hope and still was about depression and I loved this.

He spoke so truthfully and I recognised myself in some of the earlier passages of the book even though I haven't dealt with most of the things in the book. There were just these parallels with my lifestyle, especially last year and the schooling and I did relate to Craig. I think that is the most impressive part of Vizzini's writing. He paints people as people, not as characters, not as people who have a mental illness but people.

I loved loved loved the maps and the references to his childhood and just this beautiful enthusiasm for art and creating which I lost last year in the midst of Art GCSE. It reminded me of what I'd lost. I used to be so creative and all I did was create art and read in my spare time and that's not there anymore. 

Could this become the world's top depression-novel-with-authors-that-ended-their-life-afterwards? I think if people stopper heralding The Bell Jar as this beautiful piece of fiction (and it's really not) then I think that, yes, maybe this could. I would love it if it did. This book is made from sadness but it makes you feel like it is about happiness. And isn't that what we need from a depression novel? Not electrocution, not a slow decent into whatever you can call the second half of The Bell Jar, but happiness.

I just think that matters.

Five stars.

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It's Kind of a Funny Story

There are these books, right.
They're normally published by American Publishers and they're the American editions and they've been shipped over on a big plane across the Atlantic Ocean in its entirety.
You know these books?
These books are the weighty ones.
British books are so light.
You read a penguin classic, you know the white and grey and black ones with the white spines and the monochromatic pictures, and it'll be so light.
I like weighty books because they feel like proper books. They are not woosy books. They are strong books. Books that send you promises that they will be important to you.
I'm reading It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini. I can feel this deep feeling that this book will mean something to me. That it will be another Looking For Alaska. I read it and I understand even though I've never been through anything in the book.
This book is a weighty book.