Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda Review: Adorable Diverse Contemporary Perfection

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.

 

“The way I feel about him is like a heartbeat — soft and persistent, underlying everything.”

I can not for the life of me think of one single thing wrong with this book. Usually even if I love and 5 star a book, there’s some little nit picky thing like “oh, it was too slow” or “oh, this part was unrealistic,” but for this book? Nothing. I can therefore conclude that this is a perfect book.

Sixteen year old Simon Spier is gay, but nobody knows except the mysterious “Blue,” another gay boy Simon has been emailing and talking about and falling in love with. But that changes when another kid, Martin, sees an email between Simon and Blue and blackmails Simon–Simon sets up Martin with his friend Abby, or Martin shows everyone screenshots of the email.

This book was the most diverse book I’ve ever read and it was just so amazing and I love it so much and I really really think that every book should be as diverse as this!! There’s the amazing lgbtq+ diversity with Simon and Blue, there’s POC diversity with many African American characters/main characters (including Abby, who is completely amazing and one of my favorite characters for sure!!!), and there’s Jewish diversity, with multiple Jewish characters! What I really love is how it just felt so normal–there was no big deal about it being diverse, it’s just the way it is, which is how it is in real life and should be!!!

I love Simon! He’s just so pure and fun and SUCH a strong character! It felt really honest and refreshing reading from his POV, and I can’t even really say why I love him so much, but I just do and he’s amazing ❤

I really loved the family relationships in this book! I’ve mentioned on my blog before how I feel like families are always missing in YA books, but that was definitely not the case here! Simon’s family is really fun, and I just love how they aren’t ashamed to sit around and and hang out as a family! Simon’s relationship with his sisters is so endearing too! And I love how they all support each other so much.

If the family was good, the friends were even better! I lowkey feel like Simon’s entire lunch table group was squad goals because I just LOVE THEM! (I mean… can someone pls bring me an entire sheet cake on my birthday?? pls and thx). They are so supportive of each other! They have so much fun with each other! And I just love how they’ve grown up with each other and have all these inside jokes and ahh!

If the family and friends were good, then the relationship with Blue was amazing!! Simon and Blue were just so cute together eeeee! I honestly did not anticipate who Blue would end up being, but going back, there was some such cuteness! But also it wasn’t predictable and that made it just so amazing?? !!! The emails with Blue and Simon were so cute as well! Every other chapter is a series of emails between the two, and I just love their banter, and how they can be so silly and cute, but also so deep and sincere, and they were just absolutely perfect ❤

Honestly, I just don’t have that much to say about this book except that I just love it? (Note: why is it always so much easier to write rant negative reviews that positive reviews haha). I just have a lot of emotions and it’s just so happy I can’t even say why but I just love it so I’ll just leave you with a series of hearts ❤ ❤ ❤

5 out of 5 rainbow stars

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