
Rating: 4/5
Outrageously cute and addictive
Book CWs
- Homophobia
- Lesbophobic comments
- Bullying
- Blackmail
Premise
Jacques and Blue have been email penpals ever since they met through the school’s tumblr. They are both juniors at the same high school and they are both closeted gay men. Neither of them have revealed their true name.
Simon (Jacques) forgets to log out of the library computer after emailing with Blue and another Junior, Martin, reads his emails. Martin, who has a crush on Simon’s friend Abby, uses this information to blackmail Simon into setting them up.
Simon must figure out how to deal with the blackmail while also trying to understand his incredibly strong feelings for the anonymous person on the other end of the screen.
Review (No Spoilers)
This book was THE CUTEST EFFING THING IVE EVER READ. This was a partner read (you can read my post about reading with my partner) and we both found ourselves obsessed with finishing this book. We stayed up incredibly late one night because neither of us wanted to put it down.
I was so in love with this story that before my partner and I even finished reading it, I downloaded it to my iPad and started rereading the parts we had already read.
The reason I only gave this book 4 stars is because I often felt like the author was trying way too hard to sound like a teenager. There were several instances that I felt uncomfortable reading because it seemed as if she had a checklist of things she thinks teenagers say and was trying to include as many of those things as possible. I found myself annoyed with the “I can’t even”s and the constant “I don’t know”/”I don’t even know”s. They just didn’t seem natural.
Don’t get me wrong, I would (and maybe in fact will) read this book HUNDREDS of times because I am the BIGGEST sucker for cute romantic stories. I also really appreciated Simon’s family. I find that YA books have a lot of terrible sibling/parent relationships so I was very happy to see them being cute with each other throughout the book.
I love love loved this book and I hope to watch the movie really soon!
P.S. In regards to the possibility of reading Leah on the Offbeat, I’m not sure yet. I found Leah’s character kind of annoying so I’m not too excited about reading her story.