Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda (Love, Simon movie tie-in), Becky Albertalli, Penguin Random House, ISBN: 9780241330135
I CAN honestly say that by the end of the book, I truly did love Simon.
How does this novel stand out against the tide of other books hitting the YA market? Its uniqueness.
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It follows the story of a good looking teen, from a loving home, attending a good school, and has an excellent, tight-knit group of friends. How is this unique you ask? Simon has one massive secret: he’s gay.
I must admit though, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for this reader. The almost blog-like writing style took me a while to get used to, at least 90 pages to truly fall in love with Simon’s coming out story.
What really pulled me in and absorbed me completely were the e-mail exchanges between Simon and his online crush/pen pal, Blue.
The messages between the duo were so heartfelt, comical, light and deep all at the same time. It really helped sculpt Simon’s character, something I couldn’t quite piece together during his real world interactions as he almost comes across as self-obsessed.
Opening up about who you are is no easy feat and Martin, one of Simon’s classmates, stumbles upon his secret purely by accident one day in the library. Martin snaps a few screenshots and uses these to blackmail him.
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He hangs these over Simon’s head while making one near-impossible demand: Simon needs to help him make Abby like him.
This sets into motion a snowball effect of moments that will change Simon and his life, forever.
As the book came to an end, I sat back and realised that I thoroughly enjoyed it.
In this instance, I loathe to admit, I found the movie to be better.
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