Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (Simonverse, #1)

by Becky Albertalli

[nannah]

(3.5)

This may one of the few times I'm actually looking forward to the movie version. Not to say the book was bad, but there were parts that I enjoyed so little that I'm hoping the movie got rid of them altogether or at least ... just really put as little emphasis on them as possible.

Book content warnings:
homophobia
bullying
gay fetishizing

Using the email account hourtohour.notetonote@gmal.com, 16yo Simon Spier can come out of the closet to someone named Blue and express himself honestly in a way he can't to anyone "irl". Unfortunately, a kid named Martin from drama class sees his email when Simon forgets to log off in the library and blackmails him: help Martin get close to Simon's friend Abby or everyone will know Simon's gay (and worse, because screenshots will be released, Blue is involved in it too).

Basically, it's a messy soup of a high school coming-of-age story mixed with a coming-out story mixed with one hell of an adorable romance. What's not to love?? I honestly stayed up many nights to read a bit longer.

So why the 3.5?

Sometimes the text got to be a tad cringy; I mean, I get it takes a book a few years to get from finished mss to published text, so already you have some outdated slang (e.g. "I can't even"), but some dialogue exchanges could be a bit awkward. I just couldn't imagine kids talking like this, or even the adult characters either. Things just ran a bit stilted.

But the real villain of this book was Leah. An anime-obsessed yaoi-loving gay-fetishizing friend of Simon who was supposed to be an ally??? I don't think so. But this book never changed its stance on her. Simon keeps his opinion that she's like ... the most understanding out of all his friends because she introduced him to "slash fanfiction".

So let me make this clear, as a wlw: people who love yaoi (especially women and especially women who call themselves "fujoshi") basically fetishize gay people, and fetishizers are not allies.

Just like Simon, on page 21, says he thinks gay women have it easier (LOL), because dudes find them hot. Again, fetishizing gay people isn't the same thing as being allies. GOD, this part made me so furious. Almost to the point of quitting the book right there on page 21.

Anyway, despite this (which made me despise every single time Leah showed up in the book), I still loved the book as an easy romantic read. But since it looks like the next book is all about Leah ?? I definitely won't read on. There are enough stuff about gay fetishization out there being seen in a positive light. Yuck.