Book Review- Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda

Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda

★★★★★

Title: Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda
Author: Becky Albertalli
Publisher & Year: Balzer + Bray, 2015
Genre: Fiction, YA, Contemporary, Romance, LGBT+
Format: Audio

Plot: ★★★★★
Characters: ★★★★★
Flow: ★★★★★

Synopsis:

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*:

My star review is between a 2.5 and a 3.

  I have no idea why, but this book really underwhelmed me. I'm not a huge fan of contemporary, so it didn't have a great big push for me going into it. I read it more because I was looking for an audiobook, I'd heard a lot of great things about it, and I figured why not. Usually contemporaries help me at least keep the momentum of reading if I'm feeling in a slump. Since I hadn't really been reading since January, the push to read I started feeling in August was something I jumped on to get into a lot of books I have on my TBR.
   The relationship building between Simon and Blue didn't seem very fleshed out in the way that Simon's relationship between his friends were. I know most of it was between emails, however it came off a little robotic. When Simon is with his friends, he seems a little bit more affectionate towards his friends he is hanging out with by mentioning little facts about them that he remembers. It does happen with Blue, but when Simon mentions Leah the moment reads differently. 
   I have experience in having an... "online relationship" I guess from high school, so some of the moments Simon has thinking about if Blue was here is relatable. I'm sure if this book came out while I was in Highschool I would have eaten it up, but it's 10 years too late unfortunately. There are a few juvenile bits, that I again believe relates specifically to me but may be fine for someone else. The one point that jumps out the most as being annoying is calling it "The" Tumblr rather than just Tumblr. 
   The entire story reads out great for a movie, so it makes sense that it was adapted to film. I will probably watch the movie if I come across it on Netflix or something. I don't know if I will pick up Leah on the Offbeat to read. 

   As for representation, it's always nice to see more books including different types of people. I think that contemporary literature is doing a great job at identifying how important representation is in media, even though that though process may not be fully adapted everywhere else. I hope this conversation on why representation is important, not only for LGBT+, and allows us to understand that each person has a culture. 

   

*This section may contain spoilers.