Narrator Michael Crouch projects both vulnerability and verve in 16-year-old Simon Spier’s voice as he copes with being blackmailed over his sexuality. At the same time, he slowly falls in love with an unknown classmate through email. With obvious respect for the character, Crouch smoothly navigates Simon’s shifts from wry self-deprecation to unbridled anger at his situation and to complete candidness in his earnest confessions to his unknown crush. Even though listeners will instantly connect with the personable Simon, they may also find themselves pitying Simon’s blackmailer as Crouch voices him as more pathetic than cruel. This twist adds nuance to Albertalli’s refreshing novel. E.M.C. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

★ 02/09/2015
After a “goobery nerd” named Martin discovers Georgia teen Simon Spier’s secret email relationship with a boy who calls himself “Blue,” Martin blackmails Simon into helping him romance Abby, a new girl who has been welcomed into Simon’s lunchroom clique. The threat of being outed by Martin forces Simon to come to terms with his sexuality, and his wise insights—Why do only gay people have to come out? Why is that the default?—add heft to a plot that is both hilarious and heartbreaking. Debut novelist Albertalli writes believably in the voice of a confused, openhearted 16-year-old. The large cast of companionable and well-developed characters contains a heroic drama teacher and Simon’s embarrassing but well-meaning parents. Page-turning tension comes from the anonymous quality of Simon’s emails with Blue, which are interspersed with chapters written in Simon’s first-person voice that chronicle Simon’s increasing frustration with Blue’s reluctance to divulge his identity, as well as the deepening nature of the boys’ relationship. Blue may hesitate, but readers will fall madly in love with Simon. Ages 14–up. Agent: Brooks Sherman, Bent Agency. (Apr.)

Albertalli paints a stunningly three-dimensional, cliche-free world for Simon that bursts with unforgettable characters. Savor it, because you’ll read it for the first time only once. Worthy of Fault in Our Stars-level obsession.” — Entertainment Weekly

“Love child of John Green and Rainbow Rowell.” — Teen Vogue

“Delightfully funny and at times heart-wrenching. Readers will ache for Simon’s awkwardness, cheer his small triumphs, but, most of all, fall in love with this kid and with this remarkable gift of a novel.” — Andrew Smith, author of Grasshopper Jungle

“Funny, moving and emotionally wise.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“I am so in love with this book.” — Nina LaCour, author of Hold Still

“Debut novelist Albertalli writes believably in the voice of a confused, openhearted 16-year-old. Readers will fall madly in love with Simon.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Are we absolutely certain that Becky Albertalli didn’t just steal the diary of a hilariously observant teenage boy? Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is a pitch-perfect triumph of wit and wordplay that feels timelessly, effortlessly now.” — Tim Federle, author of Better Nate than Ever

“Though there are realistic moments of tension, the dominant sentiment here is the delicious excitement of finding your best self in the eyes of someone else; not since Levithan’s Boy Meets Boy have readers been treated to such a happy sigh of a book about two boys falling in love.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)

“I love you, SIMON. I LOVE YOU! And I love this fresh, funny, live-out-loud book.” — Jennifer Niven, bestselling author of All the Bright Places

“Rife with realistic, high school relationships and drama, with a laugh or two at every turn, this is a coming-of-age, coming-out, and defying-the-odds story with which many teens will identify.” — SLJ

“Becky Albertalli has written the best kind of love story: the kind in which you fall in love with the characters as they fall in love with each other.” — Alex Sanchez, Lambda Award-winning author of Rainbow Boys and Boyfriends with Girlfriends

Rife with realistic, high school relationships and drama, with a laugh or two at every turn, this is a coming-of-age, coming-out, and defying-the-odds story with which many teens will identify.

Love child of John Green and Rainbow Rowell.

Delightfully funny and at times heart-wrenching. Readers will ache for Simon’s awkwardness, cheer his small triumphs, but, most of all, fall in love with this kid and with this remarkable gift of a novel.

I love you, SIMON. I LOVE YOU! And I love this fresh, funny, live-out-loud book.

Albertalli paints a stunningly three-dimensional, cliche-free world for Simon that bursts with unforgettable characters. Savor it, because you’ll read it for the first time only once. Worthy of Fault in Our Stars-level obsession.

Though there are realistic moments of tension, the dominant sentiment here is the delicious excitement of finding your best self in the eyes of someone else; not since Levithan’s Boy Meets Boy have readers been treated to such a happy sigh of a book about two boys falling in love.

I am so in love with this book.

Are we absolutely certain that Becky Albertalli didn’t just steal the diary of a hilariously observant teenage boy? Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is a pitch-perfect triumph of wit and wordplay that feels timelessly, effortlessly now.

Becky Albertalli has written the best kind of love story: the kind in which you fall in love with the characters as they fall in love with each other.

Though there are realistic moments of tension, the dominant sentiment here is the delicious excitement of finding your best self in the eyes of someone else; not since Levithan’s Boy Meets Boy have readers been treated to such a happy sigh of a book about two boys falling in love.

01/01/2015
Gr 8 Up—Simon Speir, high school junior, walks away from his computer at school for just a moment, and that is when his biggest secret is discovered. He has been emailing a boy in his grade anonymously ever since a poetic waxing on his high school's gossip Tumblr caught his eye, and now Martin Addison has taken a screenshot and has a powerful way to blackmail Simon into getting his friend, Abby, to date him. Although it is filled with trendy pop-culture and digital-age references (Tumblr, Justin Beiber, The Bachelor, etc.) that may not stand the test of time, the message will resonate. Rife with realistic, high school relationships and drama, with a laugh or two at every turn, this is a coming-of-age, coming-out, and defying-the-odds story with which many teens will identify. With a very tidy, feel-good ending, the book will appeal to readers who enjoyed Tim Federle's Better Nate Than Ever (2013) and Five, Six, Seve, Nate! (2014, both S. & S.) and will find a familiar, slightly more mature home with Simon.—Brittany Staszak, St. Charles Public Library, IL

Narrator Michael Crouch projects both vulnerability and verve in 16-year-old Simon Spier’s voice as he copes with being blackmailed over his sexuality. At the same time, he slowly falls in love with an unknown classmate through email. With obvious respect for the character, Crouch smoothly navigates Simon’s shifts from wry self-deprecation to unbridled anger at his situation and to complete candidness in his earnest confessions to his unknown crush. Even though listeners will instantly connect with the personable Simon, they may also find themselves pitying Simon’s blackmailer as Crouch voices him as more pathetic than cruel. This twist adds nuance to Albertalli’s refreshing novel. E.M.C. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

★ 2015-01-20
A gay teen comes out to friends, family and classmates after his secret correspondence with another boy is discovered.Ever since he discovered a post about being gay on his school's unofficial Tumblr, Simon has been corresponding with its author, an anonymous gay classmate who calls himself Blue. Their conversations, which readers see interspersed with prose chapters written from Simon's point of view, are heartfelt, emotionally intimate and increasingly flirtatious—enabled, perhaps, by the fact that neither boy knows the other's identity. Simon is impulsive, full of heart and not always as careful as he should be. When he leaves himself logged into Gmail at the school library, a boy named Martin reads Simon's emails with Blue and uses the threat of outing Simon to insinuate himself into a relationship with one of Simon's female friends. Simon's social landscape is carefully and seemingly effortlessly drawn. Through light and often humorous detail, readers see clearly not only each individual character, but also the complex set of group dynamics at play in Simon's loving family and circle of friends. While Simon is focused on Blue, other characters go on journeys of their own, and the author is careful not only to wrap up Simon's story, but to draw attention to the stories the romance plot might overshadow in lesser hands. Funny, moving and emotionally wise. (Fiction. 12-18)