Published Jan. 1, 2018 by Balzer + Bray.
Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now Simon is actually being blackmailed: if he doesn’t play wingman for class clown Martin, his sexual identity will become everyone’s business. Worse, the privacy of Blue, the pen name of the boy he’s been emailing, will be compromised.
With some messy dynamics emerging in his once tight-knit group of friends, and his email correspondence with Blue growing more flirtatious every day, Simon’s junior year has suddenly gotten all kinds of complicated. Now, change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out—without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met.
So many people recommended this to me and it was so hyped up, and it just fell a little bit short for me.
It was cute, don't get me wrong, and I liked who Blue turned out to be (one of my two guesses, and honestly thank god it wasn't actually Martin) but it just felt a little bit lacking.
It would seem the most common word to describe this book is "cute", and I guess it pretty much fits. Nothing huge happens throughout this coming of age and coming out of the closet story of a gay teen living in a small community near Atlanta. He gets blackmailed by a fellow student who discovers his secret, but he isn't really afraid of being outed as much as he's afraid of his e-relationship with another gay teen in the school being revealed. (very mild spoiler ahead, if it REALLY bothers you) Once he is outed, there is some mild douchebaggery going on, but he gets heaps of support from most people. His parents are supportive, his friends are supportive, this is basically a story about nothing much happening other than normal teenage life. Which is absolutely delightful and sort of the point of the book, I guess. This is a …
It would seem the most common word to describe this book is "cute", and I guess it pretty much fits. Nothing huge happens throughout this coming of age and coming out of the closet story of a gay teen living in a small community near Atlanta. He gets blackmailed by a fellow student who discovers his secret, but he isn't really afraid of being outed as much as he's afraid of his e-relationship with another gay teen in the school being revealed. (very mild spoiler ahead, if it REALLY bothers you) Once he is outed, there is some mild douchebaggery going on, but he gets heaps of support from most people. His parents are supportive, his friends are supportive, this is basically a story about nothing much happening other than normal teenage life. Which is absolutely delightful and sort of the point of the book, I guess. This is a book that paints a picture of LGBT normalized, and just how simple it is when that happens.
Obviously, for many people in many communities, it's not this simple, but maybe the power of this book is in showing, not a utopian description, but a simple, realistic, no-big-deal picture of LGBT when it's no longer an issue. There is no "gay agenda", there's just people, who happen to be gay, wanting to be free to follow their heart. And it's great that a story like this can be summarized, in one word, as cute. Because it is.
I've seen in some comments on the book that the characters talk like real kids. That strikes me as going a bit overboard. They speak like characters in Dawson's Creek, though with a generous sprinkling of "I can't even", which seems to be the flavour of the day. But that's ok, because, seriously, did you hear kids talking? I wouldn't want to read a whole book full of THAT.
