“Simon vs. The Homo Spaiens Agenda” written by Becky Albertalli came out in March of 2015 but has recently resurfaced on the web when 20th Century Fox announced it was going to be made into a major motion picture. The movie newly named “Love, Simon” hits theaters on March 16th, 2018. This gives you plenty of time to catch up and read the book and trust me, you are totally going to want to. It’s about 300 pages and won’t take you too long to read it, I promise. I read the entire thing in about half a day because I just could not put it down.
The novel follows the story of 16-year-old Simon Spier who has a pretty big secret, he’s gay and none of his family or friends know. Simon finds out through the school blog that there’s another closeted gay student at his high school. They strike up a conversation and essentially become really good email buddies. Neither of them knows who the other is but they grow so close to one another and share all of their secrets.
The story starts off with one of Simon’s classmates seeing the email conversation and uses it to blackmail Simon into helping him out. Simon’s entire world turns upside down when his secret is threatened and there’s no one he can talk to about it. He can’t tell his family because they don’t know about ‘the gay thing’ and he can’t tell Blue (mystery email friend), because he doesn’t want to jeopardize their relationship.
With the emails to Blue growing more and more flirtatious and his friend group slowly, possibly falling apart at the seams, Simon’s life is slowly spiraling out of control.
This book is honestly one of the best stories I have read in a really long time. It’s an exceptionally beautiful love story. It is also a huge step forward for the LGBTQ+ community. There have been a handful of amazing films portraying LGBTQ+ in the last few years and this will be a wonderful addition. Simon is someone who doesn’t care what you look like or who you prefer, but someone who falls instantly for a boy he’s never met just through emails.
The novel is wonderfully written and really captures the quirky and awkward teen and the way he thinks. He’s incredibly adorable, relatable and just very real. The book had me smiling through out the entire thing.
The movie also looks to be absolutely amazing. They’ve got a wonderfully diverse cast, which is great because that is exactly what the book calls for. The book makes a huge statement about how there shouldn’t be a ‘default’ and it doesn’t matter who people like or what they look like and they shouldn’t have to be scared to tell people who they are. Everyone deserves a beautiful love story, no matter what.
Be sure to read through the book because everything about it was absolutely perfect, I promise. Also check out the trailer for “Love, Simon.”