Jeremy Heere considers himself the dork of the school. Everyday, he keeps track of his "humiliations," and pines after the beautiful Christine, the girl he can never have. He dreams of being Cool, being in the in-crowd...until one day, he is actually given the chance. At a dance, Jeremy hears about a pill called the "squip," a tiny supercomputer taken in pill form that is guaranteed to give you whatever you want in life. By taking instructions from the squip, Jeremy transforms from the geek of the school to the coolest guy in his class. But Jeremy will soon discover that there are consequences to handing over your life to a computer...consequences that Jeremy may not be ready to handle.

I picked this book up because I've read other things by Ned Vizzini, and this one seemed promising, and humorous, which was what I was specifically looking for. Vizzini really captures the average high schooler through Jeremy, a teenager who is afraid of fitting in, and pining after the girl he can never have. Even though Jeremy is almost constantly made fun of, he has a funny, sarcastic spin on life that I think many people would enjoy. And because a good majority of people went through that awkward high school stage, trying to figure out the opposite sex and what not, almost anyone could read this book and relate to Jeremy. That being said, the book was a little anti-climactic for me. From the back cover, I thought that something horrible was going to happen to Jeremy, something that would drastically alter his life forever. However, the traumatic event wasn't nearly as bad as I had originally guessed. Despite this setback, I thoroughly enjoyed the novel and would definitely recommend it to others.

For a classroom setting, I don't think this book would necessarily work as a whole class novel, especially since there are a lot of mentions of sex and masturbation throughout the novel, not to mention a lot of drug use. However, this would be a good book to keep on the shelf for students who are looking for something funny to read, and something to relate to. It might be an interesting comparison to feed, to compare the differences between the computers in the heads of these teenagers.