Let me start off by saying that, while I did enjoy this book, I still don't get the hype that much. It's not an incredibly special book, in my opinion. I mean, sure the main character is gay, but other than that it was just a nice contemporary book. Maybe it's because I am just not that 'surprised' over gay people or something like that (I mean the majority of my friends are either gay, bi, trans, etc etc), and maybe I just only saw the typical contemporary elements that almost every book in this genre seems to have (sorry not sorry, still not a fan of contemp. books).
Simon was a very nice character, and I really liked his family. His friends were cool too, and I loved the tradition of having cake during lunch every time someone in the group had their birthday. As for Blue, I enjoyed the email exchange between him and Simon, and I honestly wish there had been more emails (say one or two emails, like the initial email and a reply, at the beginning of each chapter), but that is just me being a fan of books that aren't formatted in the 'usual' way. One thing I was rather indifferent about was the Oreo diet. To me Oreo's are like Maltesers, one or two are nice, but I cannot eat more than that in one go. I used to eat them almost every day a couple of years ago, and after a while I just didn't like them anymore.
There was one moment in the book where Simon was thinking about how Blue might be Martin, the very person that had been blackmailing him over these emails, and I promised myself that if that happened, I would put down the book and not continue reading. Thank the gods that this did not happen, and I was actually quite surprised by the end. Also a bit sad that Simon/Cal didn't happen, because I believe Simon did in fact have a crush on the guy until he found out that it wasn't Blue and that made me rather sad because I had been hoping it really was Cal in the end. Oh well.
The writing was very nice, and I honestly got through the book so fast, I believe I started it on the 25th and finished it the day after. So I guess this book kind of healed my reading slump, points for that! I think I'll pick up another book by Becky, although I am not 100% sure if I'll pick up a sequel to Simon, because this book was a really nice standalone, and I'm afraid a sequel might ruin the original story for me.
I recommend this book to people who love books by John Green, especially those that loved Will Grayson, Will Grayson.
My opinion on this book in one gif: