Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Simon vs the Homo sapiens aganda

Publication: April 7th 2015 by Balzer + Bray

Goodreads Description:

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.

My thoughts:

Simon Vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda is a wonderful, heart-warming story about friendship and family with an adorable romance thrown in and a mystery that will keep you so engaged you can't stop reading! I read Simon in one sitting and as soon as I was finished I wanted to start again immediately I loved it that much!

It was so cute I had the biggest smile on my face while reading.

Simon is such a normal character. I loved how he sounds and thinks like a teenager. He's so normal but also weird at the same time and I loved it! His narration was just so honest! He has such a loveable personality it's impossible not to like him. I loved how he loves Harry Potter and references it all the time and how funny he is. I found myself relating to him a lot. This is definitely Simon's coming of age and self discovery story.

There is a whole slew of friendships and I think they were a fantastic portrayal of what teenage friendships are like. I liked how there was conflicts and everyone didn't get along all of the time but in the end they always forgave each other because they were friends. Simon and Leah, and Nick's relationship was super realistic. But my favourite was Simon and Abby- I loved Abby, she's such bubbly and supportive character and her interactions with Simon were some of my favourite scenes.

I loved how big a part family had in Simon's story. We get to see him interacting with his sisters a lot which I loved. The sibling interaction spot on between the three. I loved how supportive they were of each other and just how good their relationship was. Simon's parents are also very present in the book which I appropriated since they are usually absent from YA books. 

Blue and Simons relationship was the most adorable thing I have ever read. I absolutely loved reading their emails back and forth. They were so cute to read! And the mystery of not know who Blue was was driving me crazy while reading. I had so much fun trying to figure out who he was, I kept changing my prediction every few pages but about half way through I decided on someone and stuck with them and I was right!

Note on the diversity: of course the LGBT element is at the forefront of the story but there is some representation of race and interracial relationships too!

Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda is a fun lighthearted read I'd highly recommend if your looking for something cute, fast and entertaining!

My rating: 4.5 stars

Thanks for reading,

A :)