Review: Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

Book Title: Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Author: Becky Albertalli

Published Date: April 7th, 2015

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Genre: YA Contemporary LGBT

Standalone

Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

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.

Disclaimer: I received this e-ARC from Balzer + Bray via Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review.

Review:

Oh my god, this book was perfection. It's been a long time since a book has filled me with such happiness. This book had it all! There was a lot of shippy feels, which made me insanely happy. There was a lot of food talk, which to be honest, made me insanely hungry & most of all, there were a ton of feels.

Did I mention this book was perfect?

I loved Simon's family. His parents were just so present in his life and in the lives of his older sisters. It was not something I see a lot in YA, so I was thrilled to see it in this book. Usually parents are nonexistent in YA books, and that's usually one of my issues. Not only were they present in his life, but they were supportive and loving. They may be my new favorite YA parents. His sisters were also totally awesome, supportive and loving. Usually we don't get to see such a positive relationship between siblings. With this book, we totally got that.

We got some great realistic friendships as well. When you're a teenager, friendships can be really complicated and most YA books don't address that. Simon has complicated friendships with Leah, Abby and Nick. He seems closer overall to Abby despite only knowing her for a few months and Leah gets pretty upset about that. Not to mention that when Abby, Nick and Simon go out one night, they intentionally leave Leah out. I felt for Leah because I remembered being left out and no matter what, it's never a good feeling. Mistakes are made within this friend group.

Simon and Blue may very well be my new favorite YA couple. Oh my god, I fell in love with them as a couple long before we found out Blue's identity. I did figure out who Blue was about halfway through the book, but I had so much fun reading about them that I didn't care if I was right about Blue's identity. The shippy-ness was something I wasn't totally prepared for. It had been awhile since I had totally shipped anyone this much. The ending was utter perfection and it was awkwardly swoony, which just made it even better.

I am so incredibly in love with this book. Go read it, tell your library about it, tell your friends about it. If you only read one book this year, make sure it's this one and I'm happily giving this book 5 stars. I cannot wait to get my hands on a finished copy of this book.