"Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda": A new spin on YA romance

We all keep secrets.

In high school, those who we had the biggest crushes on rarely knew our true feelings.  I remember staring at that back of one my crushes in my AP English course every single day knowing that I would die of embarrassment if he ever found out.

In Becky Albertalli's debut novel, 'Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda' she deals with the coming of age / coming out / first love story of Simon Spiers, a 16 year old, whose secret email correspondence with the mysterious Blue is about to blown wide open by Martin, a class clown who blackmails Simon to help him get closer to Simon's friend, Abby.  Martin stumbles upon Simon's open email to Blue in the school library and takes a screenshot of it explaining to Simon that he truly believes most people would be totally cool with him being gay at the same time he tells Simon that if he doesn't help him with Abby, he'd share the email with others.

That's just not cool.

So Simon sweats it.

He worries about Blue who wants his identity to be concealed.  He worries about how his totally heterosexual 'Bachelor' addicted family will take the news if they find out he is gay. He worries about his friend Abby and how he will actually get her to even notice the goofy and annoying Martin.  He's always just worrying about something because when we have our secrets that we don't want others to know, it makes us worry when we think they might find out the truth.

Albertalli does a great job of creating lovable characters that her readers adore and want to protect.  Her years as a clinical psychologist helped her get inside their heads and create believable email correspondences as well as believable high school drama (and we aren't just talking about Simon's role in his high school's theater production of Oliver).  There's friend drama and love drama beyond Simon and Blue, but the sweetest moments of this book come in the form of Blue and Simon's growing email flirtation and Blue's concealed identity.

In their emails they discuss family and friends as well as the burden of coming out.  "Why is straight the default? Everyone should have to declare one way or another, and it shouldn't be this big awkward thing whether you're straight, gay, bi or whatever.  I'm just saying." It's true.  It's hard enough to deal with being in love and revealing your vulnerability to another or your family when you are straight, but adding the extra pressure of society's perception is almost soul crushing.

In the twists and turns of this novel, Albertalli tries to keep it real.  And it feels mostly real until the truth comes out and then all the sudden things feel too easy like the wrap up at the end of Family Ties. Maybe I am cynical after teaching high school for so long, but not everyone would be so excepting of homosexuality and those who chose to voice their distaste would not be dealt with so swiftly.  Don't get me wrong, we've come so far even in the last 5 years, but there are still a bunch of close minded individuals who are under the guise that their religion tells them that homosexuality is wrong who have plenty of support for their beliefs, too.

I'm glad, though, that love in this novel, prevails vs. ignorance. I'm glad that Simon doesn't succumb to the few haters.  I'm glad that all the friends stay friends and that Simon's family is as awesome as they are.

I needed a fun, quirky, nerdy love story to restore my faith in homo sapiens everywhere, and that is just what 'Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda' does.

Becky Albertalli has a long and beautiful writing career ahead of her with many devoted fans who are eagerly awaiting another novel.  And that's no secret.

"I'll Meet You There": A Tender Love Story

" . . . if you could make a beautiful piece of art from discarded newspapers and old matchbooks, then it meant that everything had potential.  And maybe people were like collages - no matter how broken or useless we felt, we were an essential part of the whole.  We mattered." 

Love matters.

It's getting closer to Valentine's Day, and although many people aren't all about it, I must admit that I am sucker for a good romance.  Maybe because my husband and I were high school sweethearts, I especially love to read YA books that are both realistic and romantic.  Heather Demetrios' 7th novel "I'll Meet You There" was a tender, coming of age love story that revolved around two broken teenagers growing up in the dead end fictional town of Creek View, California.

The alternating voices in this novel come from Skylar Evans (17) and Josh Mitchell (19).  Both of these characters share the common denominator of their job at The Paradise Hotel, one of only a few businesses in Creek View (others include a gas station and Taco Bell).  Skylar can't wait to escape the stereotypical fate of every girl in Creek View - pregnant by age 19 with a part time job at Taco Bell.  She just needs survive one final summer before she can go to SFU on scholarship.  Unfortunately, her mom loses her job and falls into a deep depression and delves into her alcoholic ways again. Skylar can see her dreams of leaving falling away with each drop her mother drinks.

Josh, a womanizer and party guy, has just returned from a tour in Afghanistan where he served as a Marine.  When Skylar first sees him at a party, she realizes that he hasn't just changed physically because his leg was blown off while in Afghanistan, but something seems different, maybe even softer about his overall persona.

With their broken families, broken dreams, and futures uncertain, this unlikely pair bonds together in a friendship that ultimately becomes something neither of them are completely prepared to experience. But what they do encounter together is often heart wrenching, honest and head swooning, awwww inducing love.

Although there are almost too many twists at the end of this book, the love story itself is enough to make the high praise that this book has received understandable.  Both Sklyar and Josh are beautifully crafted characters that don't want to succumb to the fates of other Creek View-lings and both of them feel like they will be stuck there forever even if they don't belong there.  Even if they have tried to leave.  Because of their circumstances and their seemingly insurmountable differences (Skylar is a scholar and an artist who has remained chaste and innocent in a town that does not encourage that, and Josh is a womanizer who has slept with most of the town and seems destined to fall into the same routines he established before he enlisted in the Marines), their surprising romance feels breathless and right.  Skylar recognizes their similarities after she tries to push Josh away.  She thinks, "It occurred to me that we were the same, in a way.  Both of us treading water, pushing against forces we couldn't control." They are drawn to the brokenness of each other and through their relationship they both begin to heal their past and present scars.

Reading young love that feels real is a beautiful thing.  It's complicated and it hurts to read when they make big errors in judgment as they navigate the tricky path to each other, but the end result in Skylar and Josh's story is worth the read.  If you are looking for a touching embrace of a love story as Valentine's Day draws closer, this one might be the one.

"All the Bright Places": Suicide and other dangers of young love

The unlikely romance of Finch (also known as Theodore Freak) and Violet Markey begins when they meet on the bell tower of their school.  Both are contemplating suicide for different reasons.  Since the death of her older sister in a tragic car accident 9 months earlier, Violet who was once popular and  vibrant with a promising writing career ahead of her, cannot move forward in her life.  She can't get into a car, or shake the feeling that it's her fault that her sister died.  Finch who is mercilessly bullied at school by the in crowd, struggles to regulate his bipolar system.  Recovering from a recent bout of depression, his mania takes him to the ledge where he welcomes the spectacle of the on lookers below.  It's only when Finch sees Violet's struggle and talks her down from the ledge that he finds a reason to live, but it's not exactly clear who saves who and for how long.

Their relationship solidified by fear, the prospect of death, and the heroism of being saved, develops even deeper when their teacher assigns a "get to know the culture in Indiana" project and Finch chooses Violet to be his partner in discovery.  Violet who is reticent at first starts to fall for the unpredictable, poetic, charming, and dangerous Finch who quotes Virginia Wolfe and can recite "Oh, the Places You'll Go" and has musical talent AND has a quirky sense of style.  Violet learns to let go of the past and start to live in the present, and Finch learns that life can feel good.

Yes, this book is charming, and yes, teenage girls will swoon over the the seductive and dangerous Finch who is a cross between Augustus in "The Fault in Our Stars" and Bender in the movie "The Breakfast Club." So much works in the book, that it's easy to overlook what doesn't work - like Jennifer Niven's heavy handed attempt to create a school world where Finch is less than acceptable (and somehow this doesn't make any sense since he is so very charming, kind hearted, intelligent and good looking).  Although there is  a quick explanation of how Roamer and Finch were once good friends until something happened, it doesn't support the continuance of the behavior.  And speaking of heavy handedness - having suicide, bipolar disorder, a tragic accident, abuse, bullying, sex, a mean girl, neglect, and divorce all in one book made this book feel unnecessarily complex at times.  The supporting characters from Finch's dad and step-brother to Amanda, the mean girl in school, to the too wonderful ex-boyfriend, Ryan, to the supportive friend, Brenda . . . all of them started to feel like too much.

Having said all of that, I still think that teenage girls will love this book and see the deeper side of it - the will to live vs. the will to die, and how depression is an illness that takes over people's lives even when things are good.  (Just an FYI: The movie rights have already been purchased and Elle Fanning (from Malificent) is slated to play the role of Violet).

I appreciate Niven's attempt to create an edgier storyline in the same vein as Rainbow Rowell's "Eleanor & Park" and Jay Asher's "13 Reasons Why." Having witnessed the abrupt shifts that those with bi-polar disorder struggle with and how powerless loved ones feel in the wake of the mood hurricanes, I also appreciate Niven's focus on the dangers of this disease.  Finch's first person narration on the depths of his depression and then his mania during what he calls "the awake" make it clear that balance does not exist without treatment for bi-polar disorder.

There's still a part of me that wanted this storyline to be a little bit cleaner - more of the discovery of the self while searching for the beauty in the unlikely landscape of Indiana, more about the love between two broken people who can help make each other better through shared pain and understanding and rediscover what living in the present is all about.  Because I taught in high schools for 15 years, I sometimes wonder if those who are writing about high school romance, friendships, issues and enemies have taken the time to actually go into a high school and observe how things really are.  Most students will tell you that authors and movie makers get it all wrong, that realistic fiction isn't really realistic at all, that although there is drama, it's rarely as horrible as it's depicted in movies, that their daily lives are so much more simplistic.  What I do love about Niven is that she touches on the truth even if she stereotypes at other times.  Her writing is good enough, though, to forgive the cliches and the oversights and the heavy handedness to create something that teens are sure to eat up like candy.