Book and Movie Review | Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda & Love, Simon

“The way I feel about him is like a heartbeat — soft and persistent, underlying everything.”

We’re having slight problems not typing all of this in caps because we’re THAT excited. Love, Simon is out in the world today, and everyone needs to see it at least 6 times this weekend. It’s important, and Becky is great and deserves all the success in the world.

We’ve decided to do a duo-review, one for the book and one for the movie. There will be spoilers toward the end, of course, so don’t read past the spoiler line if you haven’t read the book/watched the movie!

Okay, let’s begin with the book!

We fucking loved it. Simon is realistic and relatable. Adam Silvera says it best in his Goodreads review, “If Becky wasn’t a gay teenage boy with good grammar and a foul mouth in several past lives, then she’s absolutely one of the most observant writers in the YA game.” We find the book a very important example of acceptance and tolerance – one that is desperately needed in today’s world.

Although it has its fair share of serious moments, it’s a hysterical story. Simon and his friends have a hilarious, meaningful bond that’ll make you miss high school….maybe. It’s also a really cute love story with a twist as the reader, and Simon, tries to figure out who the mysterious Blue is. However, there was only one scene that we had a problem with because we felt it gave away the ending. It didn’t ruin the book for us in any way, it was just a little disappointing to figure it out so soon.

All in all, we really loved this book, and everyone should read it. We’re super proud of Becky and what she’s doing for the YA and LGBTQ community!

Now for the movie!

In a couple hours, we’ll be seeing the film for the second time (and not the last this weekend). We don’t want to say much just yet because it’ll spoil the movie, but let’s just say it does the book justice. It’s not just another sappy teenage love story – it has meaning, it has heart, it has humor, and it has representation. The actors are great, and most of the changes were good for the transition to film.

One thing we found disappointing pertained to Leah. To start, let me say that we enjoy Katherine Langford as an actress. However, Leah is described as being overweight (which is depicted on the cover of Leah on the Offbeat), and Katherine is nowhere near that. They dressed her in somewhat baggy clothes to give the illusion of some extra weight. We know that it’s not a dire necessity for her to be fat, but the constant nonrepresentation in media, especially in YA adaptations that cater to teenage audiences (like Margo in Paper Towns being depicted by Cara Delevingne and Cassidy in The Spectacular Now being depicted by Brie Larson) can be damaging.

Now this is where we start spoilin’, so run away!

We had two spoiler-y things that we didn’t care for from the movie. Firstly, in the book, Leah is blatantly pining over Nick. And as Simon begins to forcefully come out to his friends, Leah is only upset because she wasn’t told before Abby.

In the movie, we assume as readers that Leah is still in love with Nick. However, as Simon comes out to his friends, Leah confesses that she loves him, not Nick, and she doesn’t mind as much that Abby was told first.

We didn’t like this because it’s very cliche and unnecessary. It took away from Simon and his moment in a way it didn’t need to. Yes, he sort of has to go at it alone in the book because his friends are angry with him for other reasons, but the unrequited love of a gay man is just a bit much.

Secondly, in the book, Bram and Simon meeting at the ferris wheel was a private moment between just them. In the movie, basically Simon’s whole class stood at the bottom of the ferris wheel and cheered him on. It felt cheesy and made it seem less likely that a closeted teen would actually come out in front of a crowd of his peers. It made the moment of finding out Blue’s identity less special.

Spoilers are over, time to run back!

We really, really, really, really hope you see this film. Take your mom, take your brother, take everyone. It’s about time that accepting movies like this hit the mainstream. They deserve our support.

Love,