Simon vs the Homosapiens Agenda Book Review

Simon vs the Homosapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli is a YA contemporary novel that is sure to pull on your heart strings, tickle your funny bone, and yell out at certain characters in the book.

Sound like fun?

Well read more to find out why.

Summary.

As you can expect we follow our main character who goes by the name of Simon. He is a high school student and he lives out his days bored out of his mind, stressed out because he did not do his homework on time, and look for any excuse to eat junk food out with friends type of life.

Except for one other thing. . . he is gay.

While he is not necessarily ashamed of who he is and he knows his parents will support his decision no matter what, they make everything an event. Every little detail that changes with his growth they treat as a whole production.

I can honestly relate.

So he stays quiet. Then one night, his friend Leah asks him if he knows the person in the school who was gay. Fearing he had been outed he practically flies off of the bed in his haste to pace the floor and ask what the hell she meant by that?

Someone who went to their school posted an anonymous email on the site. He said he sometimes feels invisible, that he feels like he has this whole other life aside from himself. One that no one knows because he is gay. It was signed 'Blue.'

Simon sees this and gets the idea to message him back anonymously. He went with the name 'Jaques.' Throughout his school days he messages Blue in the hope that he might spot something and be able to find out who he is.

Unfortunately the messages were found by a theater buddy of his who goes by the name of Martin. Martin uses the knowledge of the emails as blackmail over Simon asking him to help him get a date with Abby Suso one of his close friends.

He agrees because he does not want Blue to be outed. It all backfires and he gets outed to the school anyway, Blue goes offline, and he is left to face the consequences by himself.

He has had enough from everyone. He rights a message on the school website saying that, yes, he is gay and no he had no power over how he came out and would not have wanted it to be that way. Because it was done however he was not going to go back to pretending it didn't happen and denying that part of himself.

He then addresses Blue and tells to meet him at the fair.

I do not want to spoil everything so if you want to find out what happens you can read it for yourself, and if you use this link you can own a copy of your very own.

Rating.

I gave this a whopping 4/5 stars!

It was beautifully written toward the audience it was intended for. There was a great arc for a modern high school setting. The characters were well-developed and you could see the connection and chemistry that the group had together.

As for what could have been better, I would have liked more focus on Blue as well. He needed more dimensions to him as the love interest of the main character and one who was in the story quite frequently. I got more out of the side characters than I did for him and I felt bad for that.

However the pacing was great, the comedy was cringey as it should be for high school-related humor. It was overall such a joyful experience.

I will not however touch on if it was true to representation as I know nothing about that as a heterosexual female and I do not believe that is my place. That is why I do not touch on the relationship aspect as much other than that I feel we could have had more of a presence and dialogue for Blue.

As always thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoy all of these book reviews. I sure do love talking about them! My next article is going to be on movie adaptations so check back in a few days for that.

Have a great rest of your day, stay healthy, and stay safe!