ABOUT THE BOOK:
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.
REVIEW BY DANIA: Do you ever finish a book and then just try to accumulate your thoughts about it and then come up with nothing. This book Simon v/s the Homo Sapiens Agenda was that for me.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved the way that this book was written but it just didn’t evoke the same emotions in me that books usually do.
I loved the way that the book was fun and had quite a few jokes and still talked about serious matters but it just didn’t hit that mark for me.
I didn’t really like the fact that the real identity of Blue wasn’t revealed until the end. The entire whodunnit (more like who is blue?) got me very excited to try to find who Blue is, but in the end, my energy level and excitement level just got really low. It had kind of a huge build-up and I thought it was going to happen near the middle but the big reveal happened near the end. So it was a bit disappointing.
The book felt slow at first but then it quickly picked up the pace. It was nice to see how his friends received the news of Simon being gay. It was a really warm thing, especially when he came out to his first friend.
Though somewhere near the end I just lost interest in the book and only started to find out who Blue was, which was a really long process too. The entire book seemed a little stretched out but still, it was a nice, warm read.
It’s an amazing break from the usual murder and dark reads. I would recommend this as a quick read for anybody though you should hang in there till the end, some parts, in the end, are really cute. 🙂
OTHER INFORMATION:
1. William C. Morris Award: Best Young Adult Debut of the Year
2. National Book Award for Young People’s Literature: Longlist
3. Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Award Nominee for Young Adults
4. Lincoln Award Nominee
5. Goodreads Choice Award Nominee: Debut Goodreads Author
6. Goodreads Choice Award Nominee: Young Adult Fiction
7. Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 2017
TRIGGER WARNINGS:
1. Blackmail
2. Bullying
3. Homophobia
4. Lesbophobia
5. Public outing
