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Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda - Becky Albertalli

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.




I found out about this book through the first released footage of the movie that is coming up this year: Love, Simon. I thought it looked pretty good, so I decided to pick up the book before the movie comes out. I haven't read many LGBT-related books, pretty much only Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan. I know the latter has written more books about LGBT-kids and I've been meaning to pick some up, but I haven't yet. Some other book always seems to pop up. But, after getting pretty excited about the trailer, I picked this book up and absolutely devoured it.

This was a very adorable book. It feels like it has been a while since I read a romance-y YA and this was an amazing way to dip my toe back into it. It was extremely cute and I loved the characters. They had these amazing relationships with each other that made me wish to be their friend as well.

What really kind of inspired me (if that's the right word for it) was the way Simon thought about having to come out. His beliefs are perfectly captured in this quote:

“Why is straight the default? Everyone should have to declare one way or another, and it shouldn't be this big awkward thing whether you're straight, gay, bi, or whatever. I'm just saying.”

It's about having to come out and I fully agree with Simon. Why do only people who are 'gay, bi, or whatever' have to come out to their families. Why does it have to be such a big thing. Love is love, right? Why must it be so different for Simon to bring a boy home and introduce him as his boyfriend? This really struck a cord with me, because it just seems so unfair.

“Sometimes it seems like everyone knows who I am except me.”

This is a story about a boy who is finding himself, learning how to be comfortable with himself and how to just be himself, which are very universal struggles. I loved it a lot, because it felt so real and it really got me thinking. Even as a 21-year-old, these are things that are important to figure out.

I would definitely recommend this book to everyone I know, because I think this is an important book for people to read to just get to know what it's like to feel like you have to hide a big part of you and how it talks about how you shouldn't have to. I think this book will be able to give closeted people the courage to be themself and to be true to who they are. So yes, this book was amazing. Go read it!




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