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 34-40Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 34 Summary
Chloe gives Jeremy the ecstasy and then leads him through the party. He notices that Christine is sitting in a room by herself, and he wants to talk to her, but both the SQUIP and Chloe urge him to go with her. Chloe takes Jeremy into the laundry room in the basement, where there is a mattress set up. They begin to kiss, and Jeremy becomes high from the ecstasy. He and Chloe make out, but they are interrupted when a fist punches through the window. Brock, Chloe’s boyfriend, is belligerently jealous and begins to chase Jeremy. He tries to reactivate the SQUIP for advice, but it can communicate to him only in Spanish due to the ecstasy. Chloe leaves, and Jeremy manages to lose Brock in the crowd. He goes to hide in a bathroom and finds the “hot girl” Stephanie inside, vomiting.
Chapter 35 Summary
Content Warning: This chapter includes a depiction of self-harm.
Jeremy hides under the sink while Stephanie vomits into the toilet. Brock attempts to enter, but when Stephanie tells him to go away, he leaves. After waiting under the sink for a while, Jeremy gets out and asks Stephanie if he can hold on to her leg because it is warm. She reveals that she engages in self-harm and then feels guilty, so she throws up. She knows of Jeremy and claims that he is reputed to be very deep and good at something, even though he is not that attractive. Jeremy, still high on ecstasy, brags about his body and reveals his fake, drawn-on muscles. Stephanie responds by showing him a “tattoo” on her leg, which is actually the marks she makes when she cuts herself. Jeremy leaves the bathroom.
Chapter 36 Summary
While trying to find Michael, Jeremy runs into Rich, who takes him to a hallway where a group of boys is watching Jake, Christine’s boyfriend, having sex with Katrina. Jeremy finds this voyeurism similar to watching porn on the internet, but he feels sorry for Christine. Rich tells him that there is a website where a male student posts photographs of the three “hot girls” in sexual situations. Jeremy leaves, feeling upset, and the SQUIP tells him in Spanish that all he is good for is sex on the internet.
Chapter 37 Summary
Christine brings Jeremy some water. She has been crying about Jake and says that they broke up two days ago. Jeremy mentions that he liked her costume at the Halloween dance but claims he cannot dance. Christine is exasperated that nerdy boys are proud of what they cannot do. Rich laughs at Jeremy for striking out with Christine. The SQUIP reactivates in English, and Jeremy accidentally talks to it aloud. He goes to the bathroom to make a new plan. The SQUIP admonishes him for squandering his chances to have sex with Chloe and Stephanie, but Jeremy tells it that the only person he wants is Christine. The SQUIP points out that Jeremy did well at talking to Christine without it, but Jeremy still thinks that he needs the SQUIP’s help to win her over. After changing the SQUIP’s mission to helping him get with Christine, they return to the party.
Chapter 38 Summary
Jeremy finds that Brock forgave him because he bested him by escaping the fight. Jeremy offers to drive everyone home and goes to find Michael. Michael is in the bathtub with a girl asleep on him. Her name is Nicole, but Michael knew her as snow_bunny, a moderator on a hip-hop music website that he visits. Jeremy waits with Christine while the others get ready to leave. She is upset about Jake, and the SQUIP helps Jeremy comfort her without being too forward or talkative. Jeremy tells her that this is supposed to be the Millennium of Women and makes a joke that men will be objectified in the same way that women currently are. Christine reminds him that the Millennium of Women means equal pay, not a reversal of social status. Jeremy asks for her phone number, and Christine gives it to him.
Chapter 39 Summary
As Jeremy drives home from the party, he is nearly hit by a pair of fire trucks that pass them. He offers to run lines with Christine in the car, but she points out that Lysander and Puck never talk to one another, so he should concentrate on driving. He drops her off, but she is still angry about his bad driving and goes inside. When he reaches his house again, he, Michael, and Nicole try to push Michael’s car out of the driveway so the sound will not wake Jeremy’s dad. The car starts to slide, but Jeremy quickly jumps inside and puts on the brake, preventing an accident. Nicole is impressed, and she goes home with Michael, who is now using more modern slang. Jeremy parks his mom’s car and goes to bed.
Chapter 40 Summary
The SQUIP wakes Jeremy in the middle of the night to tell him there was a fire at Jason Finderman’s house, and Rich was very badly burned. Jake was also burned, but Rich is in intensive care. Jeremy goes to call Christine, but the SQUIP warns him against it. Jeremy is upset, and the SQUIP is not programmed to manage his shock and grief. Jeremy remembers that Rich threw an ashtray, suggesting that his reckless behavior might have started the fire. He goes back to sleep and dreams of a badly burned Rich holding a pill and swimming in alcohol.
Chapters 34-40 Analysis
Jason Finderman’s house party requires Jeremy to navigate social interactions without the help of his SQUIP due to the use of drugs and alcohol, which inhibit its ability to communicate with him. Without technology, Jeremy is still able to get himself out of a bad situation with Brock and talk to Christine, indicating that he needs the SQUIP less than he assumes. Michael manages to charm a cute girl with his authentic passion for music, rather than the help of a SQUIP. In fact, the SQUIP points out when it comes back online that Jeremy actually does a better job than it does at charming Christine. It reminds him, “MY PLANS TO WIN HER AFFECTION HAVEN’T WORKED. WHY NOT RELY ON YOURSELF?” (211). However, Jeremy lacks confidence in his own abilities and asks the SQUIP to change its parameters, making its new goal to help him start dating Christine, rather than to have sex with the women mass media dictates as most desirable. However, once the SQUIP tries to help Jeremy, he begins to struggle to talk to Christine again. In particular, she is stressed because of his reckless driving, so she brushes off the romantic advances the SQUIP recommends. Social rules and performance appear to be less important to Christine than genuine compassion and honesty.
Other characters at the house party engage in acts of self-destruction for the sake of aesthetics and social clout. Stephanie, for example, engages in self-harm because she thinks it makes her more beautiful. When she shows Jeremy her scars, she says, “Aren’t they pretty? That’s why I do them. They’re so pretty; they’re like the only beauty in my world” (196). This blend of self-harm and aesthetics also applies to Chloe’s boyfriend, Brock. When Jeremy first sees his fist punch through the window, he thinks that it is covered in blood. He realizes that it is actually a tattoo that “makes it look like ink is spilling out between each knuckle” (188). The culmination of this association between self-harm and being cool comes when Rich accidentally burns down the house. Although Rich has a SQUIP, his heavy use of alcohol and drugs prevents it from stopping the fire. While the cool social group encourages using these substances, they end up harming Rich, rather than helping him. Jeremy reflects that “no matter how cool Rich got, he returned to his dork roots at the end, throwing that ashtray at me and whining, alone on a couch” (235). The quest for beauty and popularity is tied to self-destructive behavior, and not even advanced technology can rectify this problem.
