Book Review: Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Title: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
Author: Becky Albertelli 
Publisher: Penguin Random House UK Children's
Release Date: 07/04/2015
Pages: 313
Service: Netgalley
Format: Kindle Ebook
Buy: Book Depository 
Author Twitter: @beckyalbertelli

This has been a book that has interested me ever since I read the name of it and even more when I saw the cover and read the blurb. I just about managed to infer what the book was about when I heard about the title and I wasn't far off. 
From beginning to end I was in love with this book. There's no other way to put it. Simon Spier is a sixteen year old boy who is in high school and is gay but he's not yet ready to tell people of his sexual orientation. So, he decides to keep it a secret with only one person knowing. A person that he emails but does not know the name of. 
The plot to this book, I felt, was executed brilliantly. Told from Simon's point of view, you could really feel the emotions that were running through him. His personality was one that I fell in love with. He tries to be nice and the good person, which sometimes doesn't go to plan. But he's also ready to try his best to stand up for himself which doesn't always go to plan. 
The Spier family was just fantastic to read about. Simon and his siblings had what can often be a natural teenage reaction to parents. They were a little embarrassed by them and what the way they would act but still loved them. It just felt realistic, even though his family were a little bit more on the eccentric side. 
The relationships, of all kinds, in this book were so realistic that it felt as though I could connect with the majority of them. One thing I really liked about the friendships in this book was that Albertalli managed to show that there are all kinds of friendships which I think is always portrayed in other books. Simon wasn't best friends with every single person that he knew. There were people that he knew for longer periods of times and how that ended up affecting the decisions that he made. 
Even though the whole plot of this book is based around LGBT matters, it didn't feel like something that was constantly thrown into my face and made a huge deal of even though that was also part of the plot. I didn't think that the plot was over done at all. Although I've never been through what Simon went through in the book, I felt that Albertelli wrote an accurate portrayal of the situation and about how a lot of young people would react if they had been blackmailed about something that was quite personal to them. 
I loved the fact that I was able to really tell who Simon was emailing the whole way throughout the book. My mind kept changing up to a certain point when I thought it definitely had to be one person. When they were finally revealed it was a surprise and one that I wasn't disappointed to read as I would have been if I had guessed who it was. 
The only problem that I had with this book was that I struggled to wrap my head around all of the time jumps. It felt a little choppy to me and I had to read back sometimes to remember catch what was going on before it clicked that it was the next day or later on in the day. 
Overall, this whole book had me in happily turning each page from beginning to end which is probably why I finished it in one day. It was completely worth the read and I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking at something to laugh along with and get their teeth into an issue that people in the LGBT community may just face. 
Rating: ★★★★1/2