BE MORE CHILL

Doesn’t every teenager want to be more chill?

Jeremy feels left out of the high school social scene. He has one male friend (also dorky) and no girlfriend. He records insults he receives from other students on checklists. Then a classmate tells him about the squip, a pill that installs a supercomputer in your brain, guiding you to become cool. Jeremy invests $600 and soon the squip is giving him instructions (in blue speech balloons) and he’s on his way. Jeremy, who has already landed the role of Lysander in the school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, starts to change his persona and quickly becomes more successful in the relationship department. Although the squip technology tries to rule the situation, Jeremy and dream girl Christine still manage to keep the human element front and center, with Christine’s insights keeping their relationship grounded and Jeremy expressing his love by writing this book. This graphic adaptation of the popular 2004 novel and later Broadway musical is not as raunchy or humorous as the original, but it tells the same story, and some teens will prefer this format. The illustrations in blue, black, and white are drawn from varying perspectives, and, in an amusing twist, Jeremy’s best friend, Michael, is portrayed as the artist. Most characters are White; Michael is Black.

A boy’s pipe dreams, enhanced and destroyed by modern technology, blossom into creativity and love.