Blackmailing, falling in love, stressing out, coming out and coming of age all join hands to create the reality of Simon Spier in the novel “Simon Versus the Homo Sapiens Agenda” by Becky Albertalli. But Simon now has taken to the screen through the adaption film called “Love, Simon.”
Both novel and movie are based upon the plot of a teenage boy, Simon, who is struggling with revealing his sexuality. Nobody knew that he was gay except for two people, including a male student in his class who he began a relationship with over email. The problem was that he only knew this student by the alias of Blue, and Blue only knew Simon by the alias of Jacques.
The second was another student named Martin, who didn’t have the best of interests for Simon. Martin found one of Simon’s emails, which contained his secret, and used it to force Simon to set him up with one of his best friends, Abby. With fears of having his emails exposed and in turn losing Blue, Simon scrambled to try to fix things. This only added to the stress of dealing with increasingly flirtatious emails, his friend group breaking apart and the emotions that come along with coming out.
“Simon Versus the Homo Sapiens Agenda” is a heartfelt and touching novel that creates beauty through a story that needs to be heard by everyone. Throughout the novel, Albertalli exposes the powerful meaning that we all seek to be accepted and loved by family and friends, no matter what sexual orientation we identify with. With this, the author conveys the fact that no one should be afraid to show the world who they truly are.
Abertalli develops relationships and a setting that create a perfect space for the story of Simon Spier. The author succeeds in creating an extremely adorable and delightful novel that doesn’t lack the realness that is needed in order to create this powerful coming of age story. While we all fall in love with the quirky characters, the enjoyable friendships and the family traditions of the Spiers, but we can also relate through a variety of connections with the events in the novel.
The book is an inspiring story and has been adapted into a film that is as lovable as the novel. “Love, Simon” is accompanied with an amazing cast including, Nick Robinson as Simon Spier, Katherine Langford as Leah Burke, Josh Duhamel as Jack Spier and Jennifer Garner as Emily Spier. With this list of actors, “Love, Simon” is easily able to pass the themes of “Simon Versus the Homo Sapiens Agenda” on to the audience. The film fulfills the objective that the novel has, which is to create a storyline that is not harbored on heartbreak but heartfelt emotions. The movie has gained a resounding 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and a 8/10 on IMDb.
Though the movie is spectacular and beautiful in many ways, any devoted fan of Simon Spier should read the novel. While the movie does succeed in establishing the overall meaning of the novel, the novel creates a much more developed story that details the growth of all the characters. Not to mention, the novel has a lot of differences compared to the movie, with different scenarios and relationships which are founded more on realistic events than those illustrated in the movie.
I recommend reading the novel before watching the movie. Though it isn’t a must, it will create a much more delightful and detailed world for the viewer. If a consumer pairs both film and novel together they will be able to savor the amazing story of Simon Spier for longer. Why would anyone not want that?
