Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda: A Review
Title: Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Author: Becky Albertalli
Rating: 5/5
“People really are like houses with vast rooms and tiny windows. And maybe it’s a good thing, the way we never stop surprising each other.”
I kind of loved everything about this book. From the characters to the storyline to the lessons it teaches us. There were characters that I loved, one that I hated for most of the book (if you’ve read it, you could probably guess which one it was), and a few that I felt kind of bad for. Becky Albertalli did a wonderful job of capturing the life (and mind) of a high school student. The characters felt so real. Almost like you could go to a high school in Atlanta and find these kids going about their lives right now. There is something special about a book with completely mundane and relatable characters. No quests or special powers or saving the world (although, I love these books, too). I’ve always thought that a book can’t be good without well developed, love-able (and, sometimes, hate-able) characters. Over the past few years, I have come to realize that the characters and personalities in the television shows and movies that I watch and the books that I read are what keeps me coming back to a world or storyline over and over again. After all, when stripped to the barest of bones, don’t most stories follow the same basic outline (beginning, rising action, climax, and resolution)? The characters and settings are what makes a story special. Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda does just this. Simon is such a fun and lovable character. I, mean, the way he calls Martin a “monkey’s asshole”? I’m laughing just thinking about it. I don’t know why, but I find it to be hilarious.
Of course, there is more to this story than the characters. The plot and resolution are simply adorable. In case you don’t know, Simon is the main character who hasn’t told anyone that he is gay, yet. Things get interesting when he begins exchanging emails with another gay student at his high school. They use code names and anonymous emails, so neither one knows who the other one is. Blue (the student Simon is emailing) is adorable but very careful about his identity- he isn’t ready for the world to know his secret, nor is he ready for Simon to know his identity. Simon’s life gets even more complicated when Martin finds his email and discovers his secret. The story evolves and advances from there, but that’s where we find Simon at the beginning of the book. It’s ingenuous and completely adorable and enrapturing. I didn’t want to put it down. To be honest, I completely ignored the things that I “should” have been doing in order to finish this book! There isn’t one bad thing I have to say about Becky Albertalli’s Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. The way that Simon navigates this tricky situation taught me a few things. One of which is to be careful about putting people into boxes. People change. It’s a normal, expected, and necessary part of being human, so expecting people to always be the people they once were makes it harder to get to know who they actually are. The second thing that Simon’s story taught me is that it can be difficult to know a person entirely. At some point during their emails, Simon and Blue (I forget who actually says it) compare humans to a giant house with windows. You can only see the parts of the house with windows. In other words, you can only know the things that a person lets you see. There is always more to someone than you might be aware of.
I hope you enjoy it has much as I did! Have you read it? What did you think?
-Georgia ❤️