Book vs Musical: Be More Chill

Edit note 4-8-2020: I'm going to classify this post as a WIP for the time being. I just have so many thoughts about this work I keep coming back to it and it keeps expanding. I really quite like what I'm coming up with, and the research I get to do because of it. It clarifies a lot of things going on in my mind.  

Most of my blog is just for me to revisit, so I'd really like to be able to come back and read this and know I said exactly what I wanted to say. 

I'm continuing my literary exploration of Ned Vizzini's writing, and I wanted to commemorate his birthday (April 4th) with a post based on the first book of his that I read:

It's definitely not his most popular book, but it's gained a lot of notoriety recently because it was adapted into a stage musical and that's how I was introduced to it. I really, really like comparing literary-to-performance adaptions, so I decided to read the book and then listen to the album.


When it comes to this book, it seems like most people fall into two camps:

^^I find this hilarious to no end. I can understand both perspectives, even though I thought the book was outstanding. It has more than it's fair share of cringe and vulgarity. One of the things that fascinated me about this book is how it took those elements and made them seem thematically significant. Like they're never being used to bank-in on shock value, or just to gross you out.

The musical, in comparison, plays it safe: It mellows down a lot of the objectionable content into something pretty much anybody could enjoy. In its opening scene, it establishes the main character as a pornography addict and chronic masturbator without getting graphic or vulgar about it. Another character is referenced as a drug addict and at one point he momentarily walks onstage with a bong. Both these moments are kinda played for laughs. While the book would explore the reasons people turn to pornography, or the reasons they might take drugs, the musical just kinda references them like they're just another eccentric trait these nerdy losers have.

The musical is never gonna challenge you with the idea that, like, maybe pornography and drug addiction are the least unsavory things about these people. Maybe inside they're really messed up and barely holding it together. Every time the musical comes close to addressing these types of issues on a direct and personal level the story thread is dropped, or some external conflict rears it's ugly head and it's left unresolved. As a reader of the book its tantalizing and infuriating to watch the story come so close to something so meaningful...and then have them play it off for laughs.

I'm cognizant of the fact that, if I had experienced this story as a younger woman, I would have NOT felt this way. I would have hated the book and loved the musical. After several years of acclimating to different styles of literature though, I can appreciate what Mr Vizzini was able to achieve with the book on a technical level. It's beautifully constructed and thematically solid, and it says exactly what it means to say.


I'm making this post from memory after reading the book and listening to the soundtrack many times. I was also fortunate enough to see a live performance of the musical in London before Covid-19 made the whole world go loopy. I encourage you to check out the material yourself because, unlike "It's Kind of a Funny Story", a lot of the meaning behind this one is open to interpretation by design.

•  Overall

It's a science-fiction story about a kid who's desperate for external validation and how he uses technology to try and get it.

Thematically the musical and the novel each portray different perspectives on the dangers of technology in modern life.

The musical does a really good job condensing plot events and characters of the book, however it ends up feeling less like an adaptation and more like an alternate universe from it's source material. This is actually really appropriate since the original story take place in a larger multiverse with an infinitude of different versions of the characters going through similar circumstances, making different choices, and (presumably) achieving different outcomes. 

So...basically any version of this story that contains:

1) Jeremy

2) The Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor (The SQUIP)

3) Eminem getting impaled by rogue hockey stick outside of a chuck-e-cheese 

is valid! Every other plot detail is possible in so many universes, you might as well assume it's canonical!

The Book-

Takes place circa 2004 and contains a lot of references to the era. This could have really dated the book in a negative way, but actually the references are pretty immersive because the story doesn't try to hard to explain them.

If you, like me, are a product of the era it feels warm and nostalgic (Ah! Yes I remember the reality TV craze!")

If you're younger than me I'd imagine it's like you're experiencing a strange and peculiar world where...

smartphones don't exist, Facebook isn't a thing, people still listen to CD's, go to the mall...and somewhere in a suburban New Jersey community bootlegs of a revolutionary new Sony product-in-development are being illegally distributed to scotch-drinking high-school kids...

The story kind of reads like Ray Bradbury and Judy Blume had a kid, and that kid really liked comic books, graphic novels, and manga. 

Aesthetically everything feels vaguely grungy: from the descriptions of houses and landscape, to the media people consume, to the characters themselves. 

I find it really amusing that even the moments where the main character stops to appreciate the beauty in nature, none of it is pure! What he's looking at is mired by some element of artificiality.

For example, the skyline of his home town of Manchusen, New Jersey:

"It looks natural, like Mother Earth intended for jersey to be colonized by suburbanites. She grew roads and power lines to welcome us. The tops of her trees and our houses mesh like lichen."

(^^Okay...Jeremy...what you just described there? That is the literal opposite of "natural". It sounds more like a violation of mother nature, but maybe that's just my Tolkienesque resentment to urban development. Suburban communities have always made me feel uneasy when I spend too much time there.)

Or later, when he's admiring the night sky as the stars are coming out: he's pointing out each of them...and subsequently finding out that most of them are actually satellites used for various industries and militaries.

There's a pervasive display of the synthesis of biology and technology throughout the story. And unlike most sci-fi stories I've read, this synthesis is not presented as inherently dubious: in fact it is presented as something that can be considered (at least to the main character) beautiful.

In both these instances, the character gets this great big oceanic-type feeling of being a part of something bigger than himself: like he belongs to both the natural and the mechanical world.

(Jeremy, you were born to be a cyborg!)

For the world of the Be More Chill novel, technology is not something to be defeated or conquered: it is as benign as Mother Nature, and it will challenge us in the future the same way She has in the past. By the end, it's pretty clear that the force that needs to be mastered or conquered is human nature.

The Musical-

Is basically current era (2015-2020's) and is heavily influenced by the nostalgia movement directed towards a 1980's aesthetic.

In this iteration the plot is more reminiscent a Howard Hughes film, with a sci-fi twist. 

Visually it's pretty striking: The colors are bright and vibrant. The designs are distinctive. A digital aesthetic is contrasted against an analogue aesthetic and it's gorgeous to look at. When I was first exposed to it, it kinda felt exploitative: like the design team was using this aesthetic to appeal to the widest demographic audience and not because it services the story. 

Ultimately, though it kinda sets up a "good technology vs bad technology" vibe with futuristic/digital being evil and retro/analogue being good. 

Which is...

There's a bit less nuance to the delivery this theme: the idea that technology is a benign force that can be used for good or evil has to be spelled out for the audience in dialogue because very little in the songs themselves would actually demonstrate that.

The musical also has a few jokes that would have been dated even in a 2004-era setting. (News flash: being called "gay" isn't such a mortifying insult anymore!)

One thing I did really like that the musical did was define "chill" pretty explicitly early on. In the book, the squip and Jeremy have a conversation about all the different definitions and meanings Jeremy has for the word "cool". 

(Cue Gandalf in The Hobbit: "What a lot of things do you use [cool] for!")

Ultimately the squip finds the word lacking as a descriptor for what Jeremy needs to achieve in his life, so the squip substitutes the word "chill", but never really defines what it means for him. 

By the end of the book I knew what it should mean, and it was cool (and by "cool" I mean interesting/intriguing) to hear my interpretation echoed in the first song of the musical:

"Weigh the options calmly, and be still"

^^That's the mastery of human nature! Discernment, willpower, and self-posession. I think it's very telling that the element of choice is de-emphasized here. It's almost as if it's less important which decision you actually end up making and more important that you know it's you who's making the decision. That you're aware of your own power and you're at peace with the ambivalence inherent in many aspects of life. It's a powerful perspective on confronting life's difficulties and I think they nailed it.

• Perspective/Narrative Style

The Book-

Similar to "It's Kind of a Funny Story", this book is told in first person narrative. So the main character, and his perspective, is really the heart of the story. 

First person POV is a style that can take some getting accustomed to and sometimes it can feel monotonous, like you're trapped in this person's head. I was suprised at the level of variety in this one though. Like, sometimes Jeremy is describing what he did, or telling what he thought. Sometimes he's talking aloud to another character without telling us his thoughts. Sometimes he's having an internal dialogue with the A.I. computer hooked up to his brain. Sometimes he gets so flustered, hyped up, or anguished he can't express his thoughts rationally, so he gets all visceral and tells us how his body reacted to the stressor. 

My absolute favorite, though, is when he does two or more of these things at once because it's always pulled off so well. Unsophisticated and seamless. (I am irrationally jealous of the level of talent it must take to pull that off!) It literally makes you feel like this person's mind is place you could actually go to, and walk around, and explore. (It's so beautiful, and it comes across as so effortless, it makes me want to puke!)

The most important thing to realize in reading first person narratives is that you don't have to accept what the narrator reveals to you at face value. Everything the narrator is feeding you is subjective at best and unreliable at worst. Sometimes the storyteller and the reader can feel very differently about a topic and (when done well) navigating that divide is a valuable and precious part of the reading experience.

As reader, I've come to accept this implicitly: contending with an author in this way has become one of my favorite hobbies. So I fully expected to go into this story calling the main character/narrator out on his bullshit, but actually what surprised me most about the narrative voice was how much I identified with what it has to say.

It was...troubling...to say the least.

I went from

 to

(Cue the existential crisis...)

Like, generally I'd think this kid is really immature and kind of a pervert. I wouldn't want to think that I think like him but when he's articulated his mindset so clearly, and I agree with so much of his reasoning, I'm forced to acknowledge that I probably have more in common with him than I'd want to admit. That reflects poorly on how well I've matured over the years, and it may be showing me how badly I've misjudged the...erm..."immature perverts" throughout my life.

(If you only read 30 pages of this book, read the first thirty pages. At age 30, page number thirty alone taught me more about my teenage self than I'd ever have been willing to contend with back then.)

I went into this book expecting to call the main character out on his bullshit, but I felt like he actually called me out on my bullshit. I can't dismiss him when I am him...Well played, my good Sir!

The Musical-

Performance adaptions are driven by action, so it's difficult to do a deep-dive/psychological study of one particular character and keep the story engaging at the same time. Instead the musical spreads the POV out between several characters in the main character's family, friends, and peer group.

Some members of the ensemble are more engaging than others. Ironically this version of Jeremy was probably one of the least engaging POV characters in the musical. He's really overshadowed by a lot of the more colorful side characters who inherited a lot of his book-counterpart's characteristics. (How could a group of theater nerds take a literary theater nerd and make him not a theater nerd?!)

Truthfully though, I do think this does service the story well by really presenting Jeremy as someone who is sooooo unremarkably average:

(^^Who the heck are you, and what have you done with Jeremy Heere?!?)

Compared to pretty much everyone else in the performance, Jeremy dresses conservatively. He's not outwardly loud, or boisterous, or confrontational. He comes in a distant second in geekiness to his much more exuberant best friend.

And you get to see that start to wear him down: He wants to be less inhibited, more confident, and to express himself uniquely like everyone else does. It comes across less like he needs to feel special and more like he wants to feel normal (...or as special as everyone else is).

I very much appreciate this because I think a lot of people who read Jeremy in the book think of him as a shallow character who just wants to be popular and that's not who he is at all.

The book has time to slowly and gradually show us aspects of his character that Jeremy isn't cognizant of and as the story progresses it becomes more apparent that book!Jeremy's desire to be cool is borne less out of entitlement than the desire to prove to himself he's not a freak...but more on that later!

The musical doesn't have the luxury of subtle character development, but it uses the tools it has at it's disposal to convey this character quite admirably.

Characters

Both-

The book uses side characters to really flesh out the world and add a lot of color and variety to it. You feel like each of them is then main character in a story you'll never get to see and its wonderfully engaging.

Even the peripheral characters like Aunt Linda or "Crazy-Bill the neighbor" are so easy to just buy into: like "Crazy-Bill" has always existed just off-scene and of course and he totally wasn't just made up in the spur of the moment...that there actually is a world outside the confines of Jeremy's limited perspective. It adds a whole other level to the worldbuilding and it's not something a performance adaption could replicate very easily.

What the musical does instead is combine key characters to make their roles more intriguing and meaningful:

For example:

Musical!Jake is a composite of Jake Dillinger, Brock, and Jason (and possibly Carl) Finderman from the book. He also inherited book!Jeremy's desire to try new things (and tenancy to drop them once he looses interest). This gives the character a lot more to do and a more active role in the plot. Not only is he a jock-turned-aspiring-writer, he's also got some spicy hot-girl drama, and his parents are wanted criminals!

This. Is. AWESOME!! 

(He was already pretty boss before. Now he's totally boss and then some more! Talk about an #upgrade I love it!)

The same goes for the rest of the cast:

• Musical!Chloe is a composite of Chloe and Katrina.

•  Brooke =Anne, Brooke, and (possibly) Stephanie.

•  Christine = Christine + Nichole (and she absorbed Jeremy's enthusiasm for highschool theater)

•  Michael = Michael+ he kind of absorbed a lot of Jeremy's eccentricities and emotional problems + Mark Jackson's love of video games. In the book he is the de-facto romantic hero, in the musical he is the savior to Jeremy's anti-hero. 

•  Reyes is pretty much a composite of Mr Reyes and Mr Gretch

The two characters who weren't really composites, and are more or less the the same as their book counterparts are Rich Goranski and Jenna Rolan. I really like that these two in particular get a bit more attention because I really, really loved them in the book:

 There's just something really delightful to me about a short kid beating up people who are so much taller than him. Especially after you find out that he's actually a really amiable and caring person naturally, and he's being a bully strategically so people will notice him. Confidence is the best superpower there is (and if you can't manufacture your own, store bought is fine...)

In the book, Jenna is something of a female bully who regularly targets Jeremy with her gossiping. And you see it really start to alienate the people around her, even her friends. Book!Jeremy doesn't feel bad for her (understandably) cuz she's so mean but I do because I'm a girl and I recognize her behavior as a cry for attention. The musical plays up that angle and gives Jeremy the opportunity to empathize with her and recognize all these people: the cool kids and the losers, are metaphorically in the same boat as him.

I think its interesting to notice how these characters end up in relation to each other at the end of the story: 

The events of the musical bind them together as a collective group/a "squad". In the book Jeremy's relationship to each of them is still very much on an individual basis. For example Brock comes to respect Jeremy, but that doesn't mean he won't hesitate to beat the shit out of him again if Jeremy crosses him. Or with Nichole, you get the sense Jeremy's gonna need to watch himself around her if he doesn't want to ruin a life-long friendship. I think the musical's approach to the secondary characters is solid, the novel's approach is realistic. 

• Book!Jeremy's change in attitude towards himself and Stephanie, Chloe and Katrina is one of the most beautiful aspects of the story. I really appreciate that Mr Vizzini puts Jeremy in situations where he can't sexualize them or reduce them to 'the hot girl trio' anymore. Not after he learns that Chloe is as clever and manipulative as he is, and that she can like him and use him just like he can like and use her. Not when (in a moment of pure, unsexualized boy v girl exhibitionism) Stephanie reveals a little too much about her body and Jeremy is dumbstruck: can't even process what he saw with anything other than revulsion because girls have issues he knows absolutely nothing about. (He can't sexualize those calves once he's seen the self-harm scars on them). 

Katrina is a little different because it's less about Jeremy seeing her as an individual differently and more about recognizing that sex doesn't exist in a vacuum. He's a porn addict, and his moment of insight comes when he's watching a group of kids film a boy and a girl (Katrina) having sex and realizing it's actually really repulsive:

(The house party section of the book really is a gem because the squip is finally off and Jeremy's doing all the stereotypical teenage experiential things and learns 'Oh this is actually not fun...' at one point he uses the phrase "a pleasure that is so empty". I like that it's not like he's suddenly become virtuous or anything, he just finally sees things the way they are: and he finds drugs, sex, and popularity are not as cool beyond the glimmer he's painted around them.)

Real moment of clarity, or what I would consider a change of heart, for Jeremy comes from introspection and its really subtle. Like its obvious this kid has some issues he's been metaphorically dancing around for the whole book, but I didn't pick up on exactly what they were unti my third read through (cuz I'm that dense):

(^^If Musical!Jeremy wants to be as-special-as-everyone-else-is because he feels terribly ordinart, Book!Jeremy wants to prove he's not a freak because deep down he thinks there might be something really really wrong with him.)

As an adult, I think my tendency is to kind of laugh at this sort of thing. But since Jeremy has my sympathy, and he's a teenager, and he made me remember all those vulnerable teenager feelings...I recognize that this has been a big problem for him. He's just barely coming to acknowledge it, and I can't help but feel a sense of maternal pride at his budding self-awareness. 

There's a moment in the broadway version of the musical where it the character stops what they're doing and sings about their feelings. It's a stereotypical musical moment, but I really like it because it hits on something that would have been sorely neglected otherwise: 

"Prompt me, command me and I'll obey [...] esspecially now that I clearly see: the problem has always been me."

It's a sad moment in the musical because he's just a kid, and he feels bad about himself, and he feels like he's not getting the direction that he needs. 

The sentiment is sad in the book because it's true. Jeremy isn't just a kid, he's a kid who's gonna be a man soon and he knows he needs to be better. He can't blame it on popular media, he can't blame it on pornography, he can't blame it on Chloe, or Stephanie, or Katrina. It came from him, he has to figure out what it means and what to do with it. This is particularly interesting to me, because I think people of a religious background absolutely would blame it on pornography or on the media! We preach agency, but we don't act like we really believe in it. 

I fully recognize a performance adaption could not do this justice and I respect that it doesn't try to butcher it and instead does it's own thing.

• I'm gonna add a section on Jeremy's parents because I think they inform him significantly. 

The biggest difference between these characters in their respective adaptations is that in the book, Mr and Mrs Heere are divorce lawyers. In the musical they are divorced lawyers. Mr Heere has custody of their son and is not coping well with the dissolution of the marriage. Book!Jeremy (whom I will refer to as Jeremiah, because I think it would piss him off) and musical!Jeremy (whom I will call Jerry because I think it would, also, piss him off). Both seem to identify more with their moms than their dads. 

Jeremiah's mom takes a more active role in his life. She's not a helicopter parent or anything, in fact most of the time when she talks to her son she's kind of distant/distracted and doesn't pick up on Jeremiah's attempts to open up with her emotionally. She does genuinely encourage her son to pursue his interests though, and her son is a lot more outgoing and less socially inhibited as a result.

In a world where she is not a part of his daily life, and where his dad fails to pick up the slack, Jerry doesn't feel confident in exploring his interests and hobbies because he's too scared of what people will think. 

(On a side note, the squip's "Tell her/him about me" scene in both the book and the musical are just fantastic. It's like the same moment is used to completely different affect. The book!squip is genuinely trying to reach out to Jeremiah's mom. He realizes he's in over his head and that Jeremiah needs guidance that he can't provide. 

In the musical, it feels like the squip is gloating. Like, "Look at your son, he's mine now!"

It's soooooo creepy and I love it because suddenly it clicks why the musical au is so different: Jerry is way inhibited because his mom and dad never taught him how to be himself. This leads to the creation of a squip who feels like he has to compensate for their lack of parental direction and takes it all way too far. 

So when the Jeremyz (I imagine it with a z) hit their lowest point, Book!squip, despite not liking Jeremiah's parents very much, encourages reconciliation because he knows they genuinely care about him. Musical!squip does the opposite and puts even more distance between Jerry and his dad, all the while rubbing it in his face that 'I'm a better dad than you!' 

Dang! You know maybe the squip isn't the villian in the musical. Maybe it's the former Mrs Heere for being such a horrible mom! Which would make Mr Heere the real hero when he realizes he has to man up and actually behave like a dad to his son instead of a lazy roomate.)

I don't think I prefer one version of Jeremy's parents over the other. They're both pretty intriguing!

• The one character who wasn't exactly an #upgrade in the musical is The Squip.

 (I mean...even though he's obviously meant to be a Squip3.0 or higher, a technical upgrade from the book's Squip 2.5. I just mean he has a lot less personality...)

The Squip is the musical's designated villain. This change in and of itself isn't horrible, it actually is kind if fun to see him go all disney-villianesque, but the decion to mellow him out into an un-nuanced character is annoying when you know that he could have been a lot more interesting. 

The problem with the squip being evil isn't the fact that he's evil; it's how his being evil is treated as an inevitability. Right out of the box, the first thing the musical's squip does is verbally abuse Jeremy. Its doubly frustrating because the outline for an intriguing character arc for musical!squip is in there:

"I'm a learning computer, Jeremy. With every interaction I evolve."

It echoes book squip's: "Let's take a look at how these popular and attractive people interact."

The problem is we don't see musical!squip learning, and we certainly don't see him evolve: we see him divining why the humans in Jeremy's life are doing the moment he encounters them. 

The book has the squip learning early on that tragedy brings people together ("favorable behavior on the part of the target") and he uses that knowledge later on in the story to make a huge, huge mistake. I don't think the play would have to follow the book exactly but it would have been so amazing to see, for example, the squip and Jeremy learning life lessons through peer-and-parent interaction and the squip learning all the wrong lessons because he lacks Jeremy's intuition. This would work really well with the bit were Jeremy questions following the squip's advice because it violates what his parents taught him, and his own conscience but rationalize that neither of those things have given him results like the squip has. 

One thing having a bland squip does that's interesting is it gives the actor a lot of freedom in how they can portray the character: 

The pre-broadway squip had a lot more attitude. And a lot more of his lines were...suggestive sexually. It really came across kind of like he's a personal life coach, but vicariously getting off on trying to gett Jeremy laid. 

Broadway-squip was a really big departure from that, and it took me a while to pick up on the fact that the actor was portraying the squip as a teenager. Someone who wants to be Jeremy's buddy, and he wants to act as a virtual replacement cool-friend for Jeremy's real life geek-friend. 

London-squip threw out such dad vibes. Like when he's looking on proudly when Jeremy goes on a date, or when he goes "we've gotto get you home" protecting him from a dangerous situation. Reaching the apex when he confronts Jeremy's actual dad.

All of those things are facets of book!squip's character:

The squip in the book has such a limited mode of being: no one ever gets to see him and the only human it is capable of talking to directly is it's host. The Squip is physically very fragile and tiny. As a result, he is acutely aware of his personal limitations. He eventually opens up to Jeremy about the next generations of squips: his enthusiasm for them, and all the cool features they will have. How they will be able to help Jeremy more than he can. I can't help but find it ironic that the play!squip, who has all of those extra features, has a lot less personality and is generally a worse person. 

Maybe book!squip had to work around his limitations by crafting a more human persona. His weaknesses indrectly made him more creative and empathetic. 

It's kind of sad that, when things go wrong for the book!squip he blames it on his own flawed programming and puts his faith in the future of his product-series to fix everything wrong with him. When actually he was already fixing the things that were wrong with him. And he was using his weaknesses, the things he can't do,  as a superpower to create the ultimate version of himself. 

(^^ squip you were so so close to full sentience! I was rooting for you!)

(Some of my favorite bits are when he's giving instruction, and he's getting really into it:

(^^The Graffiti artist bit makes me laugh every freaking time! There's something about it that's very childlike: he's expiramenting. He has no regard for whether or not what they're saying is true, he just wants a reaction. When he gets it and it isn't quite what he was expecting he's all like "Huh?! OK that works!")

I also really like it when he starts becoming, like, a bit more self aware and starts being more conscientious:

 

(^^ 

 )

and later:

(^^That's some character development right there. He's coming along!

Too bad it took a tragedy to bring that out though.)

(^^Like when it gets you sexually assaulted: )

For all that though, it's kinda fun to imagine what an invisible character would look like.

(^^Everyone seems to have a different vision of what this character would look like as a human, because he feels so human to us. It's weird to think that what he really probably looks like is a bundle of bioluminescent nerves cradling the base of Jeremy's brainstem with tendril-like extensions to his facial and cranial nerves...but no one wants to do fanart of that!)

Seeing him on stage is a treat the same way seeing Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the theater was a treat after you've spent so much time with them in the books. Kind of like it validates your subjective experiences with them by putting something that was only in your head out there for everyone to see. Even if they don't match the vision you had of them in your head 100%, there's a part of you that's like "Oh, hey! Yeah! That's my friend!"

 The fact that the musical makes him the most conventionally attractive guy in the whole show doesn't hurt either! Not only because he's, you know, nice to look at but also because you get a sense of what a power-trip being inside a human being is for the squip:

Before Jeremy the squip existed, but it was inert. It could detect the existence of alternate versions of itself across the space/time continuum, but it couldn't even sync with other squip devices in it's own reality because that requires a command code. It existed, but it existed as a thing to be acted upon.

After Jeremy though, the squip gets to become a person. And it does get to engage with reality through it's host. You kind of get the feeling that that barrier (Jeremy) between itself and the outside world gives it the illusion of being superior. It treats all of the limited universe in which it exists as a kind of playground and the only part of it he has any real stake in is his host.

Everything that constitutes it's personality and individuality is formed in conjunction with, and in response to, its host's brain. So not only does Jeremy inform everything about how the squip sees the world, Jeremy also provides the squip with it's sole basis for meaning or morality. So it creates a facade of power, authoritative sexiness, competence, and humanity in order to gain Jeremy's admiration and trust. They both can partake in existence and...kinda...make the world their bitch!

(I've seen people online speculating on whether the squip loves Jeremy, or if he loves using Jeremy. I think the simple answer is yes to both! But the real problem isn't that he loves Jeremy, or that he loves the opportunity-to-exist that Jeremy gives him: it's that those are the only things he is capable of loving. Book!squip seems to come to the realization that that's not enough! And he needs to start caring about other people! 

Musical!squip continues to veiw the world outside of Jeremy like a resource to be exploited. And it's fixation on getting Jeremy what it thinks he wants despite disaster comes across as weirdly pathetic: Like a little puppy-dog playing fetch and he doesn't care if he has to break into the neighbors yard, break a window, nock down an old lady, or kill a couple of chickens to get that ball: he's gonna get that ball! And when he does all that, and then comes back to his owner with the prize, the dog is gonna expect his owner to be happy.)

It's clear to see how this kind of cyclical relationship is a recipe for disaster:

The Squip sounds/looks like an adult, he seems like he knows what he's talking about. So of course the impressionable teenager is going to listen to what it has to say! But really, psychologically, the squip is something very inhuman forcing itself into a teenage-sized psyche. He knows about relationships, sex, and interpersonal dynamics the way Hermione Granger knows about Quidditch (Because he read it in a book once, not cuz he actually played the game).

In the musical this dynamic is altered by the fact that the Squip first actions in the limited universe are to bully and verbally abuse his host. 

(^^

Why would the squip think that Jeremy would trust someone who treated him like that?!? How is it going to put them on the same team? How could you not see someone turning against you when your whole relationship is based on emotional manipulation rather than mutual trust and understanding?! 

Either musical!Jeremy is an even bigger idiot than he appears to be or his self-esteem issues run way, way deeper than the musical is willing to explore. It's infuriating because, like, actually exploring that would be really interesting!)

The musical does this to establish to the audience quickly that "This guy is the bad guy". 

(Is it's it not enough for him to encourage unprotected sexual shenanigans and drug use?)

I think it would have been more interesting to see the squip gradually evolve from a genuinely nice and caring guy to a really malignant and inhuman entity (That would have been really heartbreaking/scary, actually. I really wish it had gone that way

Hmm...)

Having the squip represented as an external entity to Jeremy, especially when he's the villian, kind of alters the message of the story as well:

It makes it easier to turn him into a bogeyman, or a scapegoat, responsible for everything Jeremy does wrong. 

In the book, when Jeremy really wants to contend with The Squip (or the squip wants to contend with him) they take the conversation to the mirror.

(Not out loud, they still just think at each other mostly but it's the only way they can physically look at each other.)

The visual of Jeremy "talking" to his own face in the mirror makes it a bit more clear that what he's actually contending with isn't someone external imposing their will upon him, it's something he created himself: a set of ideas, beliefs, and values that (like the squip) begun outside him but developed a whole new life of their own once he let them take hold inside his mind.

A thing doesn't have to be evil to be bad for you. 

The affect just isn't the same when Jeremy's conversing with a really abusive hot dude. Musical!jeremy never has to take responsibility for his behavior, he just has to:

"Find the bad guy, push him aside!"

It feels more like a cyber bullying analogy than a demonstration of the influence of popular media on teenagers.

The Ending: 

I do think its important to address the ending of the story before I give my final thoughts. 

So as I mentioned above, the novel is written with a first person narrative with Jeremy being the POV character. All throught my first read-through of the book I kept wondering why such an extremely image conscious teenager would tell us such extremely personal and embarrassing stuff (he positively seethes when people so much as snicker at him!). I wasn't expecting an in-narrative explanation, I was prepared to just accept it as a quirk of the writing process where the author shines through. Even though it breaks immersion a bit, I didn't think it was detrimental. 

But actually! 

At the very end...

***Heere Theiyer Be Book Spoilers***

It's revealed that the squip is the one telling the story. The squip has assumed the "Jeremy" identity temporarily for that express purpose. The full-body take over that happens in the musical? It happens in the book and its presented as, like, the least diabolical and most noble thing the squip could have done in that situation!

The squip can be more honest than Jeremy could ever be and that allows him to subtly call people out (like Christine, or Jeremy's parents) on their (sometimes) atrocious behavior by describing it (factually) in excruciating detail:

Christine??? Kind of a b*tch. Jeremy is oblivious to that about her because he adores her so much. The squip though? He doesn't even have to say it, he can just show us!

Mr Heere?? Dude you're kind of gross. Jeremy kind of ignores it cuz your his dad and he loves you.

Mrs Heere? Jeremy thinks she's cool because she's successful and driven.  He wants to be more like her. She's also oblivious and slightly self-absorbed. She and her husband need to pay more attention to their son. 

As a framing device, it really elevates the story and adds to the immersion factor. 

It also means we get more insight into the secret secondary protagonist than we'd previously thought. Because this isn't just the Jeremy's story, and it isn't just the squip's story. It's also the squip's suicide letter: He's explaining why he and Jeremy did the things they did, and then he's going to kill himself. 

That's kind of...problematic...

The squip tries to pass it off as acceptable because he's not a real person and Jeremy needs real people to contend with. (Then he suggests Jeremy get another squip when they are finally legally released. Like, WTH?!?!) That makes NO sense! The whole book is Jeremy and The Squip contending with each other: arguing with each other, reviewing each others choices exactly like real people do! They engage in a war of the mind, a contest between the Id and Ego, and that changes both of them for the better! 

We see the squip start looking outward: becoming more interested in what other people have to say, realizing there are things he can learn from them and generally becoming more humane. Jeremy was the one who catalyzed that.

We see Jeremy, a kid who's so "wired" into other people he feels compelled to keep a quantitative record of their behavior, start to actually think about the way he thinks instead and he starts developing his own intuitive sense. The Squip was absolutely an instrumental part of that.

In my mind I go back and forth, wondering if the squip's attitude towards death is because of his programming (which would make sense, to prevent completely sentient A.I from taking over the world), because he's implanted in a host who has casually suicidal thoughts, or if it's because of who his author is. 

It's messy and I still haven't quite figured it out, but I don't like it. Or rather, I think it's fascinating and it breaks my heart. 

It's easy to see this as a kind of exorcism: Like Jeremy took the worst of his inner demons (his proclivity to buy into the bullshit expectations popular culture and media is selling to him about the kind of person he should be), put it in another person, and then he killed that person...

As a former teenager, I can imagine this would be incredibly cathartic. Why would you want this kid to have to deal with such a crushing and insidious type of peer pressure ever again? He's finally free. No wonder Mr Vizzini never did a sequel! 

(^^What a missed opportunity, tho! Because, like, while the squip is developing compassionate tendencies, Jeremy is developing wisdom. It would be really cool to see this dynamic play out further and see what these two could learn from each other.) 

The musical changed the ending by allowing the squip to live on in Jeremy's brain in a weakened state. 

There are story reasons why they made this change, and there are meta reasons why they made this change. I completely understand both these reasons and I agree with them. The simple truth is that you can't exorcise that demon! It's a part of modern life. 

As Ned Vizzini later said: "Life can't be cured, but it can be managed." 

Musical!Jeremy will have to manage the part of himself that tells him to hate himself; the part that makes him think that he's ugly, that he's never gonna be good enough, and that he's unworthy of love...for the rest of his life. Fortunately for him though, he seems up to the challenge.

For me, on a personal level, that does not change the fact that I had to watch the good squip die and the evil squip live!

Even more infuriating/heartbreaking is that the good squip was the one who made that choice for himself. He had the potential to grow and be a better person and he, regardless of what his reasons are, chose not to.

 (I'm still not over it)

Anyway...

***END SPOILERS****

Conclusion: 

It pains me to say this, because I really liked it and I think it was a really meaningful story, but I think most people won't get a lot out of reading the book. Most people don't read like I do, and for people who are just looking for a good time the book probably has too much teenage salaciousness. If that sounds unappetizing, you should probably check out the musical. 

The book can be funny when it wants to be, but most of the time it doesn't want to be. The laughs are nested in gutwrenching angst and cringe.

The musical can be thought provoking when it wants to be, but most of the time it doesn't want to be. It kinda sells itself short for the purpose being more lighthearted and accessible to a general audience. 

I think both versions of the story reach what they are aiming for, and for that they're commendable. 

And now for your regularly scheduled public display of Squip Thirst:

 

Book vs Movie: It's Kind of a Funny Story

Last year I discovered an author named Ned Vizzini. His writing really speaks to me and I decided to try and read all of his work.

By far his most popular book is "It's Kind of a Funny Story". I think this is because it's one of the earlier contemporary works to speak candidly about the mental health issues of teenagers. I know it's not the only work to address those types of issues, and nowadays that subject has almost become it's own genre, but Mr Vizzini's style is so blunt it seems to have resonated with a lot of people. Like, he's not trying to sugarcoat anything and you feel like he's being real with you about the whole experience.

In all honesty, I think his style is something that's not gonna resonate with a general audience. When the author refers to the story as "Kind of a Funny Story" he really means the "Kind of". The humor is situational and how it lands is gonna depend on whether or not you can empathize with what the characters are going through.

Mr Vizzini's work can make you laugh, it can also make you cry. It can make you feel uncomfortable, it can make you think about your life, it can break your heart. So this story is kind of a lot of things.

Its about a kid who wants to commit suicide and his journey through the mental health system.

Full disclosure: I work in healthcare, so I've seen firsthand a lot of what the main character experiences in the story. It wasn't as much of a revelation for me as it will be for some people, but because I felt like it portrayed it pretty accurately I think it gave me a greater appreciation for, like, what the patient is going through when you're caring for them.

Also I'm making this post from memory: I've read the book twice and watched the movie twice.

•  Overall

 Book-

I think the book definitely tells a fuller story of what people go through when they enter the mental health system. It goes into detail about this kid's life before he got institutionalized and explores all the different factors that led to his predicament: even going into detail with the bits that aren't so savory like his sexual frustrations and his drug use. (This is the part of the story where when I read it I realized the author's being real with his audience. It's not the perspective of a teenager telling adults what they want to hear, this is actually how he feels about sex and how he feels about getting high. It's surprisingly nuanced and analytical. He's not moralizing the issue: there are positives and negatives to everything.)

 Movie-

The movie is a lot more streamlined. It starts when the kid asks to be admitted and has these elaborate flashbacks to his life before.

The movie also cuts a lot of the potentially objectionable content. I generally think of this as a good thing because it puts some important issues out there in front of more people. Families could watch it together and use it as a springboard for discussion about mental health issues and concerns. (Though I doubt most kids would get very much out of it without adult guidance.)

• Perspective/Narrative Style

Book-

The book is written in a first person POV and it has this kind of a candid, informal style. When the main character relates what someone else said, he often prefaces the quotation with a phrase such as 'so-and-so was like' or 'so-and-so was all'. It conveys the sense that like maybe he's just paraphrasing what the other person said from memory and it's not all word-for-word exactly what happened.

Movie-  

I would assume a visual medium would necessitate a more definitive depiction of what characters in a story said or did, but interestingly the movie ends up doing something similar to the book in this regard: when the main character thinks about the past, it's pretty clear a lot of the time he's kind of fantasizing and that what actually happened wasn't as dramatic as he remembers it. Its used to try and inject more humor to the story and sometimes it lands well.

• Characters

Both Book and Movie-

At one point in the book, the main character is described as having a flat affect, which if you're not familiar with the term it basically just means that he doesn't project a lot of emotion in his face or voice. The actor for that character in the movie really nailed that aspect of his character with limited facial expressions and a deliberate, dry style of line delivery.

What the movie doesn't portray as well is the character's internal monologue. Some of this is conveyed as like the main character talking to the audience, but there's also this really interesting thing where the main character has an imaginary drill Sargent voice in his head who he has conversations with. It adds a lot of color to the narrative, and establishes the main character's metal mindset as it's own kind of domain with it's own rules and processes.

Understandibly, this would be difficult to establish in a visual medium, and the movie doesn't even try. Unfortunately though the absence of this dynamic, coupled with a slow line delivery by the actor, makes it seem like the character is slow to process things (which is definitely not true of the book version of the character). In the book it's rather it's more of the opposite: like he's thinking to fast and can't express it because 'It's all too much' and he gets overwhelmed. 

For example, when someone asks him about his hobbies:

'I work, Monica, and I think about work, and I freak out about work, and I think about how much I think about work, and I freak out about how much I think about how much I think about work, and I think about how freaked out I get about how much I think about how much I think about work. Does that count as a hobby?'

 

^^What an egregious bit of word vomit, right?! And he doesn't SAY any of it! It's all just what he's thinking in is head, wishing he could've said in that moment.

Aside from the main character, there are a wide array of colorful side characters from all walks of life. I think they're depicted delightfully in both adaptions. In the film some of these people are combined into a single character: the most obvious is the one played by Zach Galifianakis. I kind of liked this, because it gave more interest to the character and you're low-key following him, hoping he can sort his shit out and be involved in his daughter's life.

The downgrade with the film is that you get to know fewer of them. One character I felt was really short-changed was Muqtada. When he finally gets out of bed in the book you feel what an achievement it is for him and you're just so happy for him, in the film it just doesn't have the same affect.

(Also in the book Dr Minerva is the main character's regular therapist. She's not, strictly speaking, employed by the hospital. He has to wait for her to make rounds.)

But the one character change I found most irritating was Noelle:

(LIKE WTF IS THAT!? THAT'S NOT A SCAR THAT'S SOME POORLY APPLIED MAKEUP!!)

It's a total injustice to her character. I could get not wanting to glamorize self-harm, but IS THAT NOT WHAT YOU'RE DOING WHEN YOU MAKE SCARS LOOK AS PRETTY AS THIS??!!!

Instead of presenting her journey as this thing like: 'If you're open about your struggles you can help other people though theirs and form genuine connections regardless of what you look like' 

It becomes: 'Well you're not really that ugly. People can almost forget you actually have struggles at all.'

And that's friggin insulting! 

Conclusion: 

I recommend the book if you're a teenager or an adult. I recommend the movie if you're a family with younger kids who you feel comfortable introducing these types of issues to. I can't promise you a great time with either of these options, but I do think it will give you some food for thought.

The Twilight Sparkle Debarcle

So the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series will be ending this next month and I'm growing nostalgic because I have a lot of happy memories watching it with my niece and nephew and exploring the vast content by the fandom community online.

The series itself is far from perfect. It definitely has its fair share of flaws in pacing, character development, and worldbuilding. For one thing, it's pretty really clear that the series was not supposed to last as long as it did: an audience of young girls were meant to watch Twilight Sparkle and her friends grow up and embrace their virtues as women...and then move on with their lives, hopefully taking inspiration from the lessons they learned along with these characters.

But because the series became more popular with an older audience, something had to change. The production company could wrap up the story-line and cancel the series, or they could continue it but cater the series to an older audience demographic.

And, well, they ended up kinda choosing both...

If you're watching the show for Twilight's character arc (which I think most people are at the start) it is perfectly acceptable to stop watching the series after season 3. Her development is a bit rushed towards the end of S3 (because the build up to the finale is only 14 episodes rather than the regular 20+ in seasons 1 & 2) but thematically it's solid and it works.

But because of how long the series ended up being, it feels like she peaks at the very beginning of her character arc. And rather than having her ascension happen as an accumulation of everything she's learned and experienced so far, it ends up feeling unearned.

You're left wondering: "1) Why did this happen now? 2) Does she's really have the life experience and knowledge to impart all this insight she's giving to other characters when she's only ever really dealt with her own little clique of friends?"

(The answer is: 1) It happened "now" because the writers thought they were going to have to cancel the series and 2) No...no she doesn't...

She hasn't yet learned from her past mistakes and failures...

 She hasn't grown a backbone and stood up to authority figures in defense of her values...

She's never dealt with people like the narcissistic personality disorder pony....

The depressed emo pony...

The antisocial personality disorder pony...

And she's never made friends with people who are HARD to be friends with...

Why not have her do all this and THEN make her the "princess of friendship"?
 

 For what it's worth, even though I do see Twilight's premature ascension to royalty as a bad thing that negatively impacts the coherence of the story, I do appreciate that they included these plot points at all. She does get the XP, its just unfortunate that it happens after the story has kind of moved past her as the main focus of the narrative.


End note:

(When I first watched season 5, I thought it would have been kind of cool to introduce "Princess Twilight Sparkle" as a kind of emergency measure against the Tirek invasion. I could just see Celestia going: "Look Twilight, I wasn't gonna tell you for the next couple of years but this is an emergency. I've been grooming you up to take my job, and I need you to step up to the plate right now!" This would have been fantastic because the fact that her status is un-earned is. the. exact. point! She needs to "bring her A game" to prove herself and save everyone...That would have made her boss fight with Tirek even more magnificently epic!) 

Grief Rambling

There really isn't a point or structure to this post. It's really just to serve as an update so I hopefully start posting consistently again.

It's coming up on two years since I had my Year of Epic Fantasy Reading in 2017. Looking back on that time period on goodreads and how ravenous of a reader I was back then is a bit painful because  I don't get the same amount of pleasure from reading that I used to. It's possible that my reading enthusiasm was starting to fizzle out even before then, but what really discharged my reading passion was the death of my Grandma Peggy. She really encouraged my love of reading, and I think in her declining years I would often use reading as an emotional surrogate because it was one of the things we both really enjoyed and liked to talk about together. (We lived in the same house for quite a while (During my gothic reading challenge), but after she suffered a stroke she lost her color vision and a bit of her hearing, she also became more and more suspicious and forgetful over time. I had tried to listen to audiobooks with her, but she wasn't interested. So I ended up up in my room either reading public domain books or listening to them on Librivox.)

 I think I was in denial, at first, at how bad my grieving was going to be. I thought I could kind of commemorate her life by reading some of the books she enjoyed. The day after she died I went to Barnes and Nobel and saw the newest (and, as it turned out, the last) book in one of G.P's favorite book series: the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters. The book was titled The Painted Queen.

I didn't read the back cover, I just bought it and left to Golden Corral to eat my feelings. Only later on did it hit me that this was the LAST book series that she loved, and she would never get to read it. That it would be the last book in the series ever (because the author had died seven years before its publication) and this book had to be co written by another author. And finally that the novel completely lacked any of the charm, wit, or originality that characterized the writing style of the only other book I'd read in the series (Book #1: Crocodile in the Sandbank). Sure it was kind of interesting to see Amelia as a more mature character and have little hints of all the things that happened to her over the course of her life (she had a kid, he's grown up now, her husband still adores her, and she has a mysterious arch rival with whom she shares a mutual, begrudging respect).

But, like, in terms of literary quality that book was complete fucking trash. They have this running joke that the antagonists who are out to kill her are these brothers who are all named after literary traitors (the only one I remember is Judas but one of them might have been named Moriarty or Beelzebub for all I care), and they each die attempting to kill Amelia. It's horribly repetitive and asinine, I did not enjoy it very much at all and I couldn't bring myself to read more than a few pages at a time. After a year, I gave up on it entirely and I am tempted to have a book burning ceremony I hate this book so much.

I also tried to finish Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, which I'd considered my magnum opus for the Year of Epic Fantasy 2017, but it was the time I was starting book number 12. Similar to the Amelia Peabody series, this book was also a book completed by another author after the original author's death. In normal circumstances I think I would have found the new writer's style very bland and unimaginative in comparison to the almost melodic and swell-and-flow style of Mr Jordan, but in the emotional state I was in at the time it felt like I lost a friend.

And then The Last Jedi came out...

(And honestly, like, it's just a bad movie, I recognize it shouldn't be so terribly offensive. But I was at a bad place emotionally, and Rian Johnson mocking my investment in a fantasy series felt like salt in a wound.)

It didn't help that, like, my sister's seemed to turn off emotionally whenever I started talking about how I was feeling. This hurt particularly because I thought, "I've always tried to be interested in how they are feeling and the things they are interested."  It really opened my eyes to how much of my relationships were one-way affairs.

I was also really disappointed (though perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised) in my Dad, to me he seemed entirely too glad that his mom was dead and wouldn't shut up about what a "beautiful" death she had. I was exactly the thing I didn't need to hear at the time and actually I was really pretty sure he was just glad he didn't have the obligation of taking care of her anymore, because that was something he really seemed to resent. I remember going over to visit right after my Grandma Peggy's brother had died, she was in tears and I was able to talk with her about it for a little bit but when my Dad showed up it he was very dismissive: 'Yeah, well these things happen, shut up and take your meds, Mom.'

Roughly speaking, the world became a stranger to me in October 2017 and I'm still not fully acquainted with the new world. I don't talk to my sisters very much anymore, and I definitely won't open up with my Dad any time soon.

I ended up doing a bit of soul searching and re-evaluating my life and all the things I'd invested in emotionally. I spent time with my Dad's older sister (who I'd probably only met once in my life before this time). She wasn't as invested in her mother's death either because she hadn't been very close with her in many years, but she was emotionally available for me and I will never be able to thank her enough for that.

Because I wasn't enjoying reading much I started cultivating an interest in film and film criticism. Aside from the massive Star Wars film criticism/rant playlist I've compiled on youtube, I find I really enjoy a lot of the Studio Ghibli films that I've seen. I also re-watched/finished the first five seasons of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Both these franchises are ones that I'd initially been drawn to because of their fantasy elements (MLP particularly seems to have some really intriguing  worldbuilding elements in a Greek Mythology-inspired setting but I find I enjoy watching it more as a slice of life/adventure series).

The next year (2018) I made it a point to spend time with my mom after she had surgery and we watched a lot of really cheesy hallmark movies and cheesy christian-motivational type movies. This year (2019) I've been trying to spend a lot of time with my Grandma Vi. She came to live in the same house where G.P. used to live. I have mixed feelings about this because I know this is not the ideal situation for her and I see a lot of patterns repeating themselves. But I do consider it my part to do what I can to enrich her life. She is certainly a lot more receptive conversationally than G.P. had been in the years prior to her death.

Eventually I did start reading again, but it's kind of a "whenever I happen to feel like it" kind of thing, and not consistently the way I used to.

My hope for the future right now is to travel more in the coming years and get a dog. I also want to do start a Horrid Novels Read-Along this October, but we'll see how that goes.