Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is a 2015 young adult novel and the debut book by American author Becky Albertalli. The coming-of-age story focuses on its titular protagonist Simon Spier, a closeted, gay, high school-aged boy who is forced to come out after a blackmailer discovers Simon's emails written to another closeted classmate with whom he has fallen in love.
Albertalli received the William C. Morris Award from the American Library Association, an annual honor for young adult literature as well as internationally the German Youth Literature Prize. The novel was also featured on the National Book Award Longlist and listed by the Wall Street Journal as one of the Best Young Adult novels in 2015.
The name of the novel is a parody of the term "homosexual agenda", a pejorative phrase that is commonly used by opponents of gay rights in the United States. This is also a reference to a conversation between Simon and his email pen pal, in which they discuss how they believe everyone should have to come out, not just gay people, jokingly referencing the aforementioned phrase and how their own version would be "the Homo Sapiens Agenda", since it applies to everyone regardless of sexuality.
The book was adapted into a film titled Love, Simon, which was released by 20th Century Fox in the United States on March 16, 2018, and was met with critical and commercial success.
Simon Spier is a closeted, gay, 16-year-old student in his junior year of high school with a fondness for musical theater who lives in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. Unbeknownst to his family and friends, Simon has been sending emails to a person going by the name of "Blue," Simon himself using the pseudonym "Jacques." As the two become closer, however, Simon's secret suddenly falls under siege; the emails sent between him and Blue are threatened to be released if he doesn't play wingman for Martin, the class clown, and coerce his friend Abby into falling in love with him. Now, his sexual orientation could be revealed and the privacy of his enigmatic digital confidante could be compromised. Simon must find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he is pushed out, and before he loses Blue, who only grows more flirtatious by the day, and whom Simon, whether by choice or not, is on the cusp of encountering in person.
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