Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
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Synopsis:
Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing, will be compromised.
With some messy dynamics emerging in his once tight-knit group of friends, and his email correspondence with Blue growing more flirtatious every day, Simon’s junior year has suddenly gotten all kinds of complicated. Now, change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out—without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met.
Review:
I originally picked up Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda because I saw a preview for the movie that was coming out. I thought it looked interesting so decided to read the book. For the most part I did enjoy it, but it felt really young. Like if I were younger I may have enjoyed it more.
Simon is gay, but not open about it. He has a secret crush on this guy he has been writing to, but he doesn't know who it is for sure. He has some suspicions of who it could be, but whenever he even hints at letting the other know who they really are his penpal, Blue, doesn't want to. Add to that he is being blackmailed to try and set up another kid, Martin, with one of his friends or Martin will share how Simon is gay and writing to Blue and it is a bit of a mess.
There are also a lot of messy dynamics within Simon's friend group. One of the girls like the other guy but he likes the other girl kind of thing. It is all a bit complicated for Simon and he is never really sure what he should do. I did enjoy that Simon felt really young. All of the characters did. This wasn't like Gossip Girl or something where I age the characters in my head because they don't feel like high school kids. This felt more like high school the way it was when I was there.
As I said before I think maybe a younger audience may enjoy this story more. Even though I did enjoy it everything was a bit too simplistic for me. The relationships, the writing style, the storyline itself, it was all pretty basic. And that is fine, but it was a little too simple for me to love love love the story. It was just a fun, quick read.
Rating: ★ ★ ★
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