Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda // Review

 Title: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Auhor: Becky Albertalli

Genre: Young Adult, GLBT, Romance, Contemporary

Source: Hardback copy, bought from BN.com

Summary: 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.

Goodreads

REVIEW:

Honestly, I don’t really know how to write a review for this book. Of course i’d love to share with everyone about how much I loved Becky Albertalli’s writing and the main character but I’m just stuck trying to find the right words to properly convey what a wonderful novel this was. Well, without further ado, I’ll try to write this review and just a preliminary caution to over-rambling and ‘feels’. 

Becky Albertalli was truly able to fully encompass the male perspective with the inner monologues from Simon and the dialogue between the characters. Simon was just such a three dimensional character that I was fully able to put myself into the story and with Becky’s writing that read like journal entries and inner thoughts, it was all very easy to see the story flow in my head. And the story did not lack in anything. There was not a time when the story felt there was something missing. It was like looking over a complete puzzle, everything was in place. 

Simon Spier, the sixteen year old main character, was just so perfect. I mean I might be biased because of how much I loved the book but my god, I have not ever been so invested in a book or character. In the story, Simon loves to listen to Elliot Smith and has a lovely obsession with Oreo’s that I have since not been able to not listen to Elliot Smith on repeat. I may have also been scrambling around my house since finishing, looking for a pack of Oreo’s to eat. But besides what I loved about him, Simon was just so real and I don’t know why. There’s just something about Becky’s writing that makes Simon so real. I can’t describe it but maybe you can understand if you’ve read the book. 

Something we don’t usually see in YA often is family life, which was presented naturally and positively. It was cool to see how active the students were with school life, like Simon was apart of his school’s musical, Oliver!. Being a theatre kid myself, I really enjoyed this and was really surprised to see how realistic it paralleled my drama department. 

On the ‘feels’ and rambly part, I couldn’t help but swoon and laugh at every email between Simon and ‘Blue’. I love that they met online and figured they went to the same school but wanted to remain anonymous. And I thought I had an idea on who ‘Blue’ was but was surprised to find I was wrong and oh how I loved they way they finally met. I loved that it was a mystery and my heart was shipping the two. Also when ‘Blue’ took Simon to the grocery story during lunch at the end *insert a billion heart eye emoji’s*

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda lived up to all it’s hype and I can’t believe I waited so long to read it. I will now push this awesome novel on everyone who hasn’t read it because I want everyone to read about Simon and his struggles, his awkward and quirkyness. I want people to enjoy the mystery and the romance and the entire reality the story has.

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli definitely deserved all the stars from me! 

Have you read Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda? What were your thoughts?