Book for the: Swoooon!

Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens agenda

By Becky Albertalli

If you've never heard of Simon vs. the homo Sapiens agenda or Love Simon, then I’m going to assume you either live under a rock or don’t like love.

But if you’ve seen the film (Love Simon) and haven’t got around to reading the book (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens agenda), then I am here to tell you exactly why you need to read it. Right now.

It doesn’t matter that you know what happens, or know the ending or know who Blue is. Trust me.

Firstly, I just wanted to give a kudos to the film – I never like the film adaptions of books, but it was both different and similar enough to be perfect. And that's also precisely why you need to read the book.

For the rock dwellers here, Simon is about a geeky, adorable teenager who is secretly gay. He starts exchanging emails with another boy at school who is also secretly gay – they don’t even know who each other are and write under pen names.

The sequence happens a little different in the film, but in the book, it opens to Simon being blackmailed by Martin (our villain!) as he wants to date Simon’s friend Abby. Martin enlists Simon’s help to get them together, threatening to out Simon and Blue’s emails and consequently out Simon!

The other biggest difference is that we get to see Simon meet (online) Blue in the film, but in the book, this is an already established friendship.

So why read the book?

Firstly, without a doubt, it's for Simon himself. The inner workings of this boy's mind are brilliant and so lovable. If there was anyone in the world, you wanted to fall in love and live happily ever after – it's this guy!

Second to this, in the novel you get to know Blue so well, he becomes a full supporting character in his own right, rather than becoming someone you are trying to work out the identity of, like in the film. He is cute and funny, and their emails had me rooting hard for them. I loved Blue before I knew who he was. When I found out it was even better.

Third, we come to Simon's friendship group. The set-up is slightly different in personalities, and I love the mismatch of friends and how they work. Nick especially is different, and I love book Nick, who is quiet and strange but exactly what Simon needs.

Forth, we have Simon's family – book Simon's family is weird and crazy. Not the cool parents we have in the film, and it's somehow perfect yet again.

Fifth – This is an odd one, but this is all about the play. In the film, I'm not sure what's happening with Simon, but I think he is forced to do it. In the book, Simon LOVES it, he is a performer through and through, and it just completes him as a character.

Finally, when things go down with the plot line, his friends act completely different. I get the route that the film went down, but it’s the book version all the way for me.

Everything happens in a different order in the book, ultimately making meeting Blue so, so much sweeter and needed by the point it happens. The film was great, but the book ending was way better in regards to satisfaction and swoon level.

I have a little bit of a pet peeve when we see a couple get together right at the end of a film or book, and then don't get to see much of them together. I want that yes moment of seeing how right they are together or sharing an inside joke. A kiss is not enough for me. No, I need full blown proof that these two people are the only ones in the universe for each other, and maybe I’m just biased, but the book filled me with all kinds of lovely things, that gave that to me.

So, if you’ve not read the book, there is no excuse – go and read it now!