Hot off the success of the musical, which debuted on Broadway in December 2019, Jagged Little Pill has metamorphosed into a novel.
From album to musical, to a YA novel, Alanis Morissette’s Grammy award-winning album Jagged Little Pill’s trajectory has taken another interesting turn. Taking it one step beyond the EGOT, (an acronym for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) potentially making it a winner of the literary YA Book Prize.
Led by Eric Smith, with a little helping hand from Morissette, Glen Ballard, co-writer and producer of the original Jagged Little Pill album, and Diablo Cody, screenwriter of the critically acclaimed film Juno, Jagged Little Pill’s story centers around the lives of five teens whose world is changed forever after the events at a party.
Smith, the author of the YA novel, has taken some of the side characters from the musical in a new direction, giving them a background, and a voice. Inspired by Smiths’ own frustrations as an adopted child he sought to give representation to something that he feels has largely been missing in YA fiction. Smith hopes that readers of any age take away from the novel the idea of what it means to be an ally and to use one’s voice.
“Bad things happen when you don’t speak up when you have the opportunity, even when it’s really scary. I’m hoping that people read this and realize that their voices can be used for good things. Everyone in this book is just so desperate to try their best, but oftentimes they end up failing each other because they’re not speaking up in the way that they should or the way they want to.” Smith said, as reported by Publishers Weekly.
There’s a sweet virtual book launch of Jagged Little Pill coming up on the 26th, for those keen on knowing more.
Jagged Little Pill, is slated for release on April 26, 2022, via Abrams’ imprint Amulet.
