53 pages • 1 hour read
Ned VizziniBe More Chill
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 16-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary
When Jeremy wakes up, he searches the internet for mentions of the SQUIP and finds a Yahoo News article about it. The SQUIP is an advanced piece of wearable technology that allows the user to ingest a quantum computer with a much higher processing power than normal CPUs. The technology is still in development at Sony, but Jeremy thinks bootleg versions could have made their way to New Jersey easily. After reading about the SQUIP, Jeremy masturbates to pornography while calling Michael. He asks him to take him to the bowling alley where Rich mentioned the person selling the SQUIP would be. Michael primarily dates Asian girls, but Jeremy thinks that if Michael had a SQUIP to prevent him from listening to alt-rock music, he could have more romantic success with women.
Chapter 17 Summary
Jeremy and Michael go to the bowling alley, and Jeremy looks for the leather trader from Ghana who has a SQUIP. After asking at the bar, he meets an Asian man who admonishes Rich for referring him, claiming that the last shipment of SQUIPs was already dispersed, and there might not be any more until the official release. Jeremy is desperate to get one before them because his high school years might be over by that point. The trader tells him to go meet his cousin, Rack, who works at a Payless shoe store at the mall, and take at least $500. He shows Jeremy some photos in his wallet of casinos in Las Vegas, claiming that he taught his SQUIP to count cards. As the trader praises the SQUIP, he smiles and reveals that he replaced all of his front teeth with gold.
Chapter 18 Summary
On the internet, Jeremy searches for any other way to purchase a SQUIP. His father comes to look over his shoulder as he checks eBay, remarking that Ben Franklin would have loved new forms of technology because he was forward-thinking. All the search results for “SQUIP” are Beanie Babies because, coincidentally, there is a squid Beanie Baby named SQUIP. Jeremy notices that many of the Beanie Babies are selling for extremely high prices due to their rarity. Meanwhile, his father asks him if he had sex with a girl at the Halloween dance; when Jeremy says no, he tells him that in the 19th century, a father would simply take his son to a sex worker to help him gain sexual experience. Jeremy is embarrassed, but when his father mentions that Aunt Linda collects Beanie Babies, he gets an idea. He tells his mom that he would like to help Aunt Linda clean out her gutters.
Chapter 19 Summary
Jeremy goes to Aunt Linda’s to clean out her gutters and steal some of her valuable Beanie Babies. First, she wants to ask him about his personal life. Jeremy tells the truth, saying that he hates school and plans to purchase a supercomputer so that he can become cool. Aunt Linda assumes he is being facetious and laughs. He is annoyed by her questions and goes upstairs to clean out the gutters. He finds many valuable Beanie Babies in her collection and throws them through a window so he can recover them later. As he cleans out the gutters, he enjoys the view of New Jersey suburbia from above. Once he is finished, Jeremy collects the Beanie Babies and goes home with his mom, telling her that he is always happy to help his family.
Chapter 20 Summary
A week later, Jeremy goes to the mall with $640 in cash he got from selling the Beanie Babies. Michael drives him but goes to listen to music at another store. Jeremy finds Rack at Payless and asks him about the SQUIP. Rack takes him to the back and shows him a box of gray pills. Jeremy gives him $500 in cash, which seems to be enough. Rack tells him that this is untested technology and that he assumes no responsibility for what will happen. Jeremy takes the pill with Mountain Dew, which Rack recommends to activate the SQUIP.
Chapters 16-20 Analysis
Jeremy’s search for the SQUIP brings him into contact with another system of rules that he must understand: the economic market of consumer culture. While the SQUIP is a speculative piece of technology that is still beyond the ability of contemporary computers or even Artificial Intelligence, the premise is not far from reality. In the early 2000s, the rapid development of new devices such as cell phones and home computers created changes in the way that everyday people behaved and interacted with one another. For example, Jeremy’s use of the website eBay to sell Beanie Babies opens up a new way for him to secretly acquire money without his parents’ knowledge. The anonymous online community of potential buyers connects him to the global economic community, rather than just his local one. This online community functions in a similar manner to the social community of Jeremy’s high school. The Beanie Baby traders have created another system of value. As Jeremy reads their eBay posts, he slips into “this mentality where the only thing that’s important is the planet you control and analyze and understand” (90). In a similar manner to Jeremy’s attempts to quantify and understand the rules for being cool, the online marketplace functions as a miniature society with its own standards and systems.
Jeremy’s theft of Aunt Linda’s Beanie Babies suggests that advances in technology cause problems, as well as solving them. Jeremy’s father remarks optimistically on this new development in technology, claiming that the Founding Father Ben Franklin would have enjoyed seeing “this entire worldwide community of individuals safely and happily trading their wares” (87). However, this optimism seems slightly absurd, given that Jeremy is actually using eBay to steal money from his aunt to purchase illegal bootlegged technology. While the interconnectedness of a global consumer base sounds like a wonderful form of progress, the novel indicates that it can also be dangerous and potentially harmful.
The novel’s critical perspective on consumer culture is also evident when Jeremy finally buys his SQUIP. When he goes to the mall with $640 in cash, he thinks, “I discover one way to be Cool—walking around with lots of money” (97). This suggests that money increases his confidence and, therefore, his coolness. Power, wealth, and social status are all shown to be connected. The trader from Ghana reveals that he is using his SQUIP not for its ability to help him navigate his social life but to count cards in a casino. This allowed him to replace his own teeth with gold grillz. The trader replaces his natural body parts with symbols of wealth that he earned through exploiting a new technology, suggesting that he and his SQUIP are unnatural. When the trader describes the SQUIP to Jeremy, he says, “It’s the greatest thing on earth. It’s the only way to live” (86). These words mimic the tone of an advertisement, making the SQUIP seem not just desirable, but necessary, even though humans survived without one throughout human history.
