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Okay, this review isn't formal in any way, so bear with me. For those not aware, this book has a corresponding musical of the same name. Here's what I'm going to do: I'm doing a whole Musical vs. Book segment at the end of my review, so if you just want to know what I think about the book itself, just ignore the last part of my review. If you only care about my thoughts on how the musical differs from the book, feel free to skip to the end. That being said, here are my thoughts on the book.

The book follows Jeremy Heere, his crush on Christine Caniglia (who he only likes because of her looks, as he has never spoken to her), and his discovery and use of the SQUIP. Now that you get the main idea, let's start with my complaints.

The first complaint I have to say is that the book doesn't age very well. There are words and ideas that are very outdated. This mostly applies to what's considered "cool" and even more with what's considered acceptable. The reader is supposed to sympathize with Jeremy (and to a lesser extent, Michael). I had a hard time doing so. Both of these boys (and all of the boys in the novel, in complete honesty) are such insufferable douchebags, I don't feel bad about them not having friends. They are all incredibly misogynistic, as pointed out by many other reviewers. Michael even has a specific interest in Asian girls, which was off-putting. The ladies in the novel are reduced to nothing more than walking sex dolls. The only girl given a hint of personality is Christine, who clearly doesn't like Jeremy and explains to him that she'd like to stay friends with him. But Jeremy isn't satisfied with that, no no, because he's a cool man and goes out of his way to make unwanted advances toward Christine, even making her cry in front of 300 people, (but it's okay because the SQUIP told him to! More on that later). Along with the misogyny, there's subtle homophobia mixed in, too. Basically, what it comes down to is the fact that this book was published in 2004. This stuff was a lot more accepted in literature over 10 years ago than it is now. It's disgusting, yes, but this is how teenage boys acted, and some still do act this way. Don't even get me started on what is considered cool in this book. It's basically all of the aforementioned misogyny and homophobia, but with Eminem thrown in a little bit. This book ages like a bottle of fine milk.

Now, onto my second major complaint. The Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor. The SQUIP. The SQUIP (or squip) is the turning point of the book. The squip's objective is to take an uncool person and make him cool. It makes him be more chill. It does this by implanting itself into the subject's brain (via a travel through the bloodstream after the subject injects the pill that contains the squip). After the squip is in the brain of the uncool person, it feeds the person instructions on how to speak and act. This is a problem. The squip says that having a predatory attitude toward women, disrespecting your parents, and abandoning your friends is cool. Jeremy takes the squip, listens to all of its instructions and you can probably guess where it goes from there.

My last major complaint is the ending. I was shocked. I won't say exactly what it was for sake of not sharing any huge spoilers, but it boils down to everything that Jeremy had done being forgiven because he had a squip. He had the choice to not listen to it, or not buying it in the first place, but NOPE! NOT HIS FAULT! HE HAD A SQUIP!!

Moving on. Even with my gripes, I managed to finish the majority of this book in one day. This isn't a big deal for a lot of the people on this site but it's a huge deal for me. I've only ever read a few books so quickly. This was because I was so engrossed in seeing what was going to happen next. There was always something happening next. Some of the things that happened were better than others. I can't talk about this without some major spoilers, which is disappointing because it looks very disproportionate against my complaints. Also, this whole review is getting a little hefty.

End verdict: I think I (kind of) enjoyed this book because I love the musical. Had it not been for the musical, I probably would not have finished, let alone enjoyed, the book.

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Thanks to my not-so-subtle segue, we're on to the Musical vs. Book section!

As stated before, I love the musical. These characters have an actual personality, for one thing. There is much more development of the friendship between Jeremy and Michael, and it makes a WORLD of a difference. Michael is my favorite character in the musical because of his role and my emotional attachment to what he goes through. As for the book, I don't think it would make much of a difference if Michael was never a character in the first place. It is INCREDIBLE how much of an improvement there is when the narrative is told in more than one point of view (though, I understand why the book was in Jeremy's POV to work for the ending).

Another thing: While Jeremy is still a douche in the musical, he is astronomically less of a douche. He's also a douche for a different reason. In the musical, he's a lot more respectful to women, which is refreshing. However, he still uses other girls for the sake of getting Christine. I'd say it's much better, though. The main reason he sucks, to me anyway, is his willingness to cut Michael off completly. That might be my bias talking.

The ends of both pieces are so different you'd think that the writers of the musical didn't finish reading the book and just decided to make their own ending. The ending of the musical is a lot better, though. The squip is actually seen as evil in the musical, as it should be. In the book, (view spoiler)[the squip is just like "Hey, if you want to get rid of me, no biggie. Drink some Mountain Dew: Code Red�" and everyone is happy to pretend there was no harm done. (hide spoiler)] In the musical, Jeremy tries with everything he has to shut it off because it's, you know, evil. However, the musical has the same problem of (view spoiler)[ Hey! Squip's gone! Now I don't have to deal with any consequences!! (hide spoiler)]

Okay, I'll end my review here. I have lots more to say, but considering the length of this, I'll spare any curious readers. If you want to discuss this more with me, feel free.