Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda: Review

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.

I like this book more than Simon likes oreos. I’ll admit I read a lot of bad romances lately *Lady Gaga starts singing in the background* but this book made me love love again. I highly recommend it to those with diabetes because this book is so sweet it will give you a sugar high sans sugar.

Simon, the oreo diet expert with great Halloween costume ideas, I loved him from the very first Harry Potter reference.

“What’s a dementor?”
I mean, I can’t even. “Nora, you are no longer my sister.”
“So it’s some Harry Potter thing,” she says.

All the characters were authentic and endearing (except Martin. Screw you, Monkey’s asshole) and so realistically flawed. Coming from a country where merely identifying yourself as a member of the LGBTQ+ community will get you in prison, I naively assumed that there wouldn’t be any issues in countries where same-sex marriage is legal, man was I wrong. There are still some people(?) who are homophobic or not wholly accepting, not to mention the heteronormative mindset of parents. And this book talks about that which is really important.

I’ve read so many books where it looked liked black people were forced stereotypes added to fill the diversity quota but in Simon Vs. you wouldn’t know that they were black if you skipped their description, so hallelujah for realistic representation.

“White shouldn’t be the default any more than straight should be the default. There shouldn’t even be a default.”

Blue is so cute, he’s a shore worth swimming to. A half-Jewish, grammar-nerd shore. Their emails make me so warm and fuzzy, I just want to be their friend so we can paint each other’s nails and I can awkwardly third-wheel. If I had to sum up this entire book in one word it would be so-freaking-adorable (yes that’s one word, shut up). The only problem is that I wanted more of it. And some superior force must have heard my plea cause there is going to be a freaking spin-off called Leah on the Offbeat.  Leah is also one of my favorite characters, how could she not be- dresses up as Tohru from Fruits Basket, a Drarry shipper and a badass drummer.

“People really are like house with vast rooms and tiny windows. And maybe it’s a good thing, the way we never stop surprising each other.”

For the sake of all things oreo-ey, go read this book. There’s also going to be a movie and I can’t wait to point out all the places they go wrong MWHAHAHA.