Hello my lovelies, today I am reviewing Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli. This was recommended to me by a few people and I can see why!
A bit more of a modern take to a classic coming-out story, this book follows Simon as he interacts with an online boy going by the name of BlueGreen (their code names are derived from their email addresses) whom he nicknames Blue. They interact and discuss fairly modern concepts such as facebook and tumblr which is relevant to a lot of students now.
Over the course of the story, Simon gets caught by another boy and is blackmailed into helping this boy to get to know and ask out a female friend of his, in exchange for keeping quiet about his sexuality and online friend/boyfriend Blue. Naturally, this goes badly. You are with him every step of the way as he comes out to his best friends, his family, gets forcibly outed to the school population, gets drunk at a gay restaurant and overall just experiences the most confusing time of his life to date. A wonderful story that kept me guessing about Blue’s identity right until the very end, it can be a little sensitive to classrooms as a lot of derogatory terms are used against Simon when he’s forcibly outed to the school population, and is experiencing his budding sexuality (and hormone overdrives!)
Overall, this book gets a solid 5/5 stars from me! Perfect for a read aloud of literature circles but at the very least a must have for the classroom bookshelf!
Until next time!