BOOK REVIEW: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

…sometimes it seems like everyone knows who I am except me.

My synopsis: Simon Spier doesn’t have isn’t particularly against coming out, he just doesn’t think it’s anyone’s business. But when he carelessly leaves his email open at the library, Martin took screenshots of his VERY private emails with his secret online friend, Blue, Simon is blackmailed into helping Martin get close to his good friend, Abby. He unintentionally angers Martin and everything is spiraling out of his control and maybe  and everything between them was just all a ruse, after all…

Published 2015

Genre: YA Contemporary, YA Romance

Themes: LGBT, romance, coming out, friendships, knowing someone, secret identities, aliases, acceptance, bullying, family, social stigma

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But I’m tired of coming out. All I ever do is come out. I try not to change, but I keep changing, in all these tiny ways. I get a girlfriend. I have a beer. And every freaking time, I have to reintroduce myself to the universe all over again.

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is funny and insightful at times. I’m not too fond of the writing style – I’ve also read Becky Albertalli’s The Upside of Unrequited. I tried picking this up previously but really couldn’t get into it right away so I decided not to continue. Picked it up again because I became a fan of Nick Robinson (and also Miles Heizer who starred in the Netflix series adaptation of 13 Reasons Why) when I watched Everything, Everything so when I found out he’s playing Simon, I naturally wanted to see the movie and read the book. The trailer was pretty good, and this kind of plot lends itself really well to romcom films.

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the film yet, so I can’t give you a review on that – I hope to see it eventually though, so I’ll make sure to post my review here when that happens!

Simon is a very likeable character, I thought. What I enjoyed the most is reading about his interactions with his family and friends, including Blue. He has a solid group of friends and support group – I loved the little quirks of his family, and Albertalli demonstrated the oft-complicated relationship between parents and teenagers. There are boundaries that are often not too clear: how much do parents need to know about their children? How much is too much?

I also liked the idea Simon brought up about owning your identity. Sometimes, it’s not that you want to lie or you don’t want anyone to know. Sometimes, it’s just that for once, you want to own something, you want to keep something for yourself.

But then when you’re finally ready to open yourself up just a little bit more to the world, it becomes this difficult thing to do – every single time, it feels like “coming out.”

There shouldn’t even be a default.

There’s this social stigma about being different from everyone else – as ridiculous as it sounds considering that not one person in the entire world is totally and exactly alike (not even identical twins!) We, as a society, make up these defaults as if we aren’t any better than robots or machines or programs – and we create this environment that is opposing and unfriendly.

Overall, it’s a pretty good read and I’ve noticed a lot of contemporary lovers like it a lot – I like that even with a lighthearted tone, it touched on a lot of important and difficult topics. As for me, I enjoyed John Green’s Will Grayson, Will Grayson much more!

If you liked Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda:

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green & David Levithan

Did you like Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda?

Did you figure out who Blue was?

Have you seen the movie, Love,Simon? What did you think?