Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Wow, umm this is a first. The first time I've read a book about a gay romance in my life, and the first time I've started writing a blog post at like 1 AM (usually they're finished by like 1 AM and I have to wait until a decent hour to post them).
Basically, movies are what usually gets me into books in the first place. If I hear that a book is getting a movie and I think the trailer is pretty cool, I read the book. But this was a little bit different. I don't think I've ever seen the trailer for "Love, Simon" yet, even though the movie is coming to theaters in like two weeks. I don't even know where I heard about it, but I did and I ordered the book from the library and it's all kinds of cute, relateable and just feels-inducing (did I just use "feels" in a sentence? I believe a more appropriate term would be butterflies-in-your-stomach).
Yes, if you're wondering, I read the book all in one night and I'm writing the review right afterwards because it's fresh in my mind and I have a lot to say about it. I'll tell you that it's a pretty short book and will probably take you about 2-3 hours to read, but that doesn't make it any less complicated, or any less entertaining.

The cover:

 

Summary: 

Simon Spiers is gay. He knows it and there's no denying it, but he'd rather die than tell anyone. Not until he responds to a Tumblr post by another boy at his school going only by the name "blue" and exchanges emails with him over the course of several months, finding himself divulging more personal secrets than even to his best friends. 

Everything is alright, until Simon forgets to log out of his secret Gmail account one day at school and Martin Addison decides to take pictures of his emails with Blue, mildly threatening Simon that if he can't score a date with his best friend Abby, the whole school is going to know about Simon's secret. 

What ensues is chaos, on the part of Blue and Simon, who struggle to maintain their anonymity with each other and the confronting of their identities that comes with it. While Simon tries to fulfill his part of the deal with Martin without systematically destroying his friend group, he can't help but wonder, who is the boy that he has been discussing the most intimate details of his life with since the summer? Who is the boy with his oddly poetic emails and absolutely perfect grammar? And most of all, are they meant to be together, or is it some cruel twist of fate?

My Thoughts:

I LOVED IT. Partially because I'm a sucker for love stories in general, and probably because I thought it would be way different than how it turned out to be. Somehow, I thought the book would be more of a political statement than an actual love story. (Please don't kill me, but opinions are opinions) But it wasn't. It was just two teenage boys falling in love as awkwardly as they possibly could, while messing up the most stuff in the process, as teenagers in general tend to do. And it was so unapologetically teenager-ish that I loved it even more. There were a lot of situations that I could relate to situations with my own friends, and it was so cute that I just wanted to cry at times. It was like someone finally got it right. Teenagers don't talk like The Fault in Our Stars, throwing sarcastic book references at each other every couple lines, but they're horribly awkward, and seem to make things even more awkward when they're being conscious of how awkward they're being. It's a continuous cycle of awkward. 

Also, Blue's identity is just a what? WHAT? I was mildly disappointed that it wasn't any of the guys that you thought it would be, even when one of them explicitly told Simon that he was bisexual. I understand that it was a mystery that needed to be solved in the most mysterious way possible, but the clues were kind of pulled out of nowhere. Like it was things you would have easily missed (literally one line of one page that you could have easily forgotten about if you were wishing you were with them in every chapter), but I give Bram an immense amount of credit for the ABRAhaM Lincoln thing. My favorite thing is when Simon's going down the list of presidents in his head and goes "Martin Van Buren"....WHAT?! Like that was a moment of extreme terror for him and me too. I swear, if it was Martin all along, that would suck a little. Why would he do the whole thing with Abby if it was really Simon that he wanted? Ick....

Also, can we take a moment to appreciate Simon and just how adorable he is. (Also, y'all should look up Nick Robinson, who's gonna be playing him in the movie, just for science ;) He's so hopelessly a nerd, like he admits that his first celebrity crush was Daniel Radcliffe. It was DANIEL RADCLIFFE of all people (but I think everyone liked him at one point or another), and if that doesn't say what kind of a person he is, he dresses up as a dementor for Halloween. As a seventeen year old boy. It's really cute and just a very pure thing to do. I think that's what his character is in one word: Pure. I guess not really from the point of view of some of the stuff he says, but he always has the best intentions in everything he does and that just makes him even more loveable.

Also, I loved seeing Simon and Blue's emails. They really gave off the vibe of being like text messages, weirdly personal, but just as distant as emails and electronic communication can be. Even Simon cracks and says it to Blue right before they meet up, that he feels like a best friend. He tells him that he's told him things that he hasn't told his actual best friends. But he feels like he's falling in love with a picture. And that's why they need to meet in person. 

I was just as surprised as Simon that no one really cared too much when Martin put up the Tumblr post exposing him. Yeah, as usual some of the guys gave him a hard time, but generally it was alright. I find it funny that he says in the beginning, "Maybe it would be different if we lived in New York, but I don't know how to be gay in Georgia. We're right outside Atlanta, so I know it could be worse. But Shady Creek isn't exactly a progressive paradise." My hometown's a bit like that. It's a lot more progressive, but I can totally see people getting at least a little backlash for being so open about it because for as many left-wing people there are, there are just as many hard right-wing people and I guess you need a balance. Basically, upstate New York is a weird place too.

Age Rating: 16+ 

There's a decent amount of bad language in this one, really enough to convince you that it's about a teenager and his personal problems. It just enhances the casual mood. But seriously, it's not as big of a deal when you go in expecting it. There are a couple derogatory words for gay people used throughout the book, but not much.

Also, I just want to mention that there are some mentions of alcohol and underage drinking, particularly at a Halloween party at one of their friends' house and then again at a "gay bar" that Simon's friend drags him to. But what I barely get is that Simon just strolls into their house, really really drunk, and his parents just ground him for two weeks. I guess it just depends on how relaxed your family is, because that's very strange for me. Oh well. Let's call it cultural differences and move on. 

As far as the romantic content, it's not much. Simon and Blue kiss at the end in that really teenage love story kind of way but it's nothing bad. If anything, this book is innocent. It's cute. It's got no intention of shocking you or pushing any kind of agenda. It's just a love story about two simple boys who are trying to figure out who they are and the best way to deal with it.

((I'm done with love stories for a little while. I'm done. I can't handle the cuteness and the overbearing feeling of me being so hopelessly single... So now onto 2018! I hope it's full of more really good books and more reviews!))