A Deluxe Limited Edition Celebrates Simon vs. the Homo Sapien Agenda at Ten Years

Can you believe it's been a decade since not-so-openly gay Simon Spier made the choice — one way or another — to exit the closet? While coming out stories are nothing new, Becky Albertalli's best-seller Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda created a YA sensation which led to a theatrical version called Love, Simon; and a three-season television show spin-off called Love, Victor. 

You can celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the book with a stunning DELUXE LIMITED PAPERBACK EDITION from HarperCollins, while supplies last. This 400 page edition includes gorgeous specs, making the package as beautiful as the read, and features new bonus content from Becky herself, including emails between Simon and Blue and Oreo recipes from Simon! ORDER HERE.

​If you haven't had the pleasure of reading the book, I'm posting my original review from 2016 below: 

I’ve had the opportunity to review a few books featuring LGBTQ youth which, as you might expect, have ranged from bad to excellent. Some young adult authors are clearly adding gay characters to their books because, I surmise, they feel it’s expected by modern teen and Millennial readers who are historically open-minded on the subject. While tokenism is annoying, it appears to be a waning trend as more and more YA authors like John Green, David Levithan, Maggie Stiefvater and Stephen Chbosky provide us with authentic LGBTQ characters. Now you can add Becky Albertalli happily, gleefully to this list.  

​Albertalli’s Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda is perhaps more accurately a gay romance than a coming out story. The titular character is a 16-year-old high school student who has largely come to terms with his sexuality but is still dragging his feet about coming clean with friends and family. In fact, the only person he’s shared his sexuality with is an unknown classmate nicknamed “Blue” whom he met through his school’s Tumblr page and communicates with entirely through Gmail. The honest missives he shares with Blue are slowly giving Simon more confidence, even though their relationship is inherently dishonest. After all, it's a romance which exists only in a virtual world where people can be anyone they want or anyone you want them to be. Both boys are reluctant to break this spell by revealing themselves to the other.

Yet their carefully cultivated secrecy is endangered when a schoolmate named Martin accidentally intercepts their email exchanges and blackmails Simon into helping him win over a female classmate. When this arrangement doesn’t go as planned, Martin outs Simon on the same Tumblr page where he and Blue met. Rather than caving to this attempted humiliation, Simon owns the truth and with his gay identity now revealed, becomes even more determined to meet Blue in person.

If I have one big criticism of this book, it’s that Simon’s very public outing does not result in any substantial trauma. Although there are a handful of homophobic incidents following the revelation, Simon’s family, friends and teachers are overwhelmingly supportive. While I have no problem showing gay teens receiving the moral and emotional support they deserve, Albertalli notes on multiple occasions that the book’s setting of the Deep South is perhaps not the best place for a young man to come out.  But since Simon doesn’t seem to have any real fear of being ostracized, and in fact doesn’t experience any serious prejudice, Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda sends some mixed signals on this particular subject.

Regardless, the book is proudly optimistic and ultimately resolves itself as a sweet story about a boy’s first love. For gay teens struggling to find themselves, whether they live in the Deep South or not, it’s important for them to have hope through the written word. In this respect, Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda fits the bill nicely.

​RELATED: My Books  |  LGBTQ Collection