Love, Simon door Becky Albertalli

• Titel: Love, Simon
• Author: Becky Albertalli

General information 

Love, Simon is a book written by Becky Albertalli. The movie Love, Simon was originally based on the book Simon vs. the homo sapiens agenda, and after this the movie was again turned into a book; Love, Simon. Love, Simon is a fiction book. It’s a love story with a different twist. The book was first published in the beginning of 2018, sometime after the movie came out. The book has been translated into over 20 languages. It’s hard to find a lot of general information about the book; there is more available about the film. Luckily, most things are the same! 

Plot 

In this book a 16-year-old high school student Simon Spier is followed. He lives together with his parents and two sisters in Atlanta, Georgia. Despite his good life, Simon has one big secret: he’s gay. Simon discovers an online confession about another gay person. This boy is online known as Blue. Simon is interested and decides to email Blue under the name Jacques. They start talking and become close. But then Simon’s classmate Martin finds out about the emails. Martin is attracted to Abby and he threatens Simon that if he doesn’t make sure Abby and he get together, he’ll publish the emails. Simon gets scared and he decides to try and find out about Blue’s identity. He thinks it’s his other classmate, Bram. At a Halloween party, Simon tries to get in contact with Bram, but then he sees him making out with a female student. He then concludes Bram can’t be Blue. At the same party, Nick confesses about his love for Abby to Simon, but Simon lies to him and say that she already has a boyfriend. Then Leah comes up to him and says vague things about that she’s destined to be in love with one person and Simon believes this is about Nick. At a meeting with Abby and Martin, Simon gets closer with Lyle, another classmate of his, and he thinks he might be Blue. At a football game Simon meets Lyle again and, before he could ask him if he’s Blue, he confesses to him about his feelings for Abby. Simon is now upset and tells Martin either to ‘go big or go home’. After these words, Martin publicly confesses his feelings for Abby, but she rejects him. On Christmas Eve, Martin publishes Simon’s emails and Simon shuts out all his friends and family. On Christmas morning, Simon comes out to his parents and they accept it. After the holidays, Nick and Abby, who are now a couple, confront Simon about lying to them and shutting them out. Leah confesses to Simon she was in love with him and is now very upset he didn’t talk to her. And to make things even worse, he receives an email of Blue about that they better should stop talking and Blue deletes his email account. Then his mother says that Simon should talk to Leah and so he does and apologizes. He then posts an online confession apologizing to his friends and to ask Blue to meet him at the school carnival. Waiting for Blue at the festival, he rides the Ferris wheel until he runs out of money. Then Martin offers him one more ride and before the ride starts, Bram sits down next to Simon revealing himself as Blue. They ride the Ferris wheel together and they kiss with their friends cheering them on. Simon’s life returns to normal again and he has started an official relationship with Bram.  

Characters 

Again, I’ll name the main characters and their development, if they had any. I’ll also name some secondary characters. 

Simon Spier: He is first very insecure about his sexuality but in the end, he learns that there’s nothing wrong with being honest and being yourself. His personality grows much stronger throughout the book. 

Leah Burke: one of Simon’s best friends. She's very sarcastic, but also a kind and loyal friend. Thanks to Simon, she also learns that there’s nothing wrong with being yourself. 

Nick Eisner: another best friend of Simon. He's a typical teenager, with a lot of mood swings, especially switching to a philosophical mood (which may be annoying to his friends sometimes).  

Abby Suso: she’s a new friend into the friend group of Simon, Nick and Leah. She's an outgoing and smart person and loved by almost everyone. 

Martin Addison: he’s mostly known as the ‘class-clown’, which makes him a pretty popular boy. This image, however, is turned into a betrayer after posting Simon’s emails online. In the end, he apologizes to Simon and he has learned that you shouldn’t bully people about being different; everyone can be who they want to be. 

Bram Greenfeld: or Blue. He's one of Simon’s classmate. He's a quiet and smart student. After Simon found out Bram was Blue, he was happy about it, since he has always though that he was cute and handsome. 

Themes: 

Control: The control over Simon’s life is being taken away slowly until he almost completely lost it. When Martin threatened Simon, it first didn’t seem that bad. But at one point Martin started to ask too much from Simon and things got out of hand. Luckily, in the end of the book, Simon gained control over his life again. 

Choice: Some choices in the book are small and simple, but some have, when making the wrong choice, huge consequences. Choice causes Simon to lose his friends and loved one’s support for a short time, but another choice also brings this back. 

Identity and sexuality: This whole book is focused on having a different identity and sexuality. In the book, Simon uses a lot of quotes making clear that there shouldn’t be a default. Becky herself has said about the book it was her intention to make sure to show the world that everyone is equal. 

Love: In this book, you come across friend love, gay love, family love, and many more. Love makes Simon stronger. Because of love, he pushes through and doesn’t give up. Love also binds the stories of the characters together. 

Setting 

The story takes place in the state of Atlanta, in Georgia. There are not many specific addresses named, like the address of Simon’s house, or the ones of Nick and Leah. A lot of the story takes place at their high school. 

Book 1 vs. Book 2 

Love, Simon is a book to film to book mutation. Becky wrote the book Simon vs. The homo sapiens agenda and there was a film made based upon this book called Love, Simon. Because the book Love, Simon is mostly the movie script, I couldn’t do a Book vs. Film piece of it, so I decided to do Simon vs. The homo sapiens agenda vs. Love, Simon. So here are 5 differences between book 1 and book 2. 

1. In the first book Leah has a huge crush on Nick, while in the second book Simon thinks at first, she has a crush on Nick, but later it turns out she liked Simon all the way. 

1. In Love, Simon, Simon’s mom gives him a sort of speech after coming out, but in Simon vs. The homo sapiens agenda, this speech doesn’t appear. 

1. In book one, Martin finds out himself Abby already has a date and when he asks Simon about this, he admits he knew about this already. After this, he posts sexist jokes on the internet about Simon and Blue. In book two, however, Martin asks Abby out in public and he gets rejected. After being humiliated in front of a lot of people, he posts screenshots of Simon and Blue’s emails. 

1. Principal Mr. Worth doesn’t exist in Simon vs. The homo sapiens agenda. 

1. In book 1 Simon's friends help him to get into a relationship with Bram, but in book 2 Simon gets into a relationship after a lot of trouble and without support. 

Fun facts 

Here are 5 fun facts about Love, Simon. 

1. The guy on the cover of the book (Nick Robinson, playing Simon in the movie) is straight as sexuality, while his younger brother is gay. 

1. There are two sequels written, Leah on the offbeat and The upside of unrequited. 

1. Becky wrote the book with the idea of changing people’s views on LGBTQ+ community. 

1. Simon is completely obsessed with Oreo’s, just like the author Becky. 

1. Everything about this book is based on Atlanta; the author is from Atlanta, it’s written in Atlanta, there are places in the book that are in Atlanta; even the movie is filmed in Atlanta!