Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda is about sixteen-year old Simon Spier- a closeted drama kid living outside of Atlanta. Simon has been flirtatiously corresponding with another closeted classmate through anonymous emails for months when he carelessly leaves his private email account logged in at school. Another student, Martin, finds the clandestine correspondence and screen caps the scandalous conversation to blackmail Simon into giving him an “in” with Simon’s friend, Abby.
“People really are like house with vast rooms and tiny windows. And maybe it’s a good thing, the way we never stop surprising each other.”
There are a lot of teen movie tropes (in literary form here) and for whatever reason, I found them grating when I’ve found them charming before. Simon was a bit too twee for my taste and I found it difficult to believe he had been passing as heterosexual in the deep South. Also, the secondary characters were a little underdeveloped compared to the supporting casts Rainbow Rowell or John Green have brought into the world.