Love, Simon

Love, Simon by Becky Albertalli

Hello! I’m Connie. After finishing reading A dog’s purpose by W. Bruce Cameron, I started to look for other books which are related to the previous book. Wandering around in the library, I was appealed by a book with a handsome guy in an eye-catching red background on its cover. So, I quickly went through the back of the book, finding that the story has something in common with the previous book I read. As a result, I decided to choose this book, Love, Simon, as my second reading material.

The story tells the normal life of a sixteen-year-old high school student, Simon Spier. He looks the same with others but there is a large secret hidden in his mind, that is, he is gay. It’s a secret that he hasn’t revealed to a single person expect for Blue. Blue is another gay teen in the closet and Simon’s pen-pal who he met through Tumblr. However, Simon has no idea who Blue is. As they keep emailing each other just about every day, Simon turns out that he can’t stop but falling in love with Blue. But, one day, Simon is approached by his school’s class clown, Martin. Martin blackmails him into helping him date one of Simon’s new friends, Abby, after finding Simon’s emails on a school computer because Simon forgets to sign out of his email account. If Simon refuses to help him then Martin will tell the entire school he is gay.

When I finished reading several chapters, it came up with me some ideas. Simon is a gay in the closet, and when he made up his mind to come out, he chose to tell Abby who he just knew for six months rather than Leah who was his best friend for almost thirteen years. Sometimes, it’s more difficult to tell the truth to someone you are very familiar with. Instead, you may turn to tell a stranger or someone you are actually not so familiar with, just like Blue to Simon in the story, since it won’t concern you that how they think of you. And if it’s someone you are quite familiar with, you may be worried about whether the truth will lead to the change of the relationship between you.

Based on my own experience, I used to have a friend who was very close to me. We always shared everything to each other no matter it was joyful or sorrowful. And when I was in a bad mood, she was always the first one to support me. At that time, I considered me and she to be the best friend ever. Feeling so lucky to find such a girl who has a lot in common with me, I really appreciated the friendship between us. However, everything changed when she confessed to me that she actually did not take me as a “friend;” instead, she had a crush on me. It was not until she told me the truth did I realize that she had different affection for me. To be frank, she said that she had hesitated for a long time, considering if it was a right choice to confess her true feelings to me though it was destined to fail because she understood that I was heterosexual. And if she did so, our friendship may break down. But, she just not able to hide her feelings anymore. After her confession, it turned out that we couldn’t become a couple, we were not able to be friends, either. From then on, I lost my best friend; as a consequence, my heart was torn into pieces. I sometimes wondered that if my best friend didn’t tell me the truth, could we continue being friends?

Back to the story itself, I can totally understand why Simon is not able to tell his best friend the biggest secret on his mind. Sometimes, it was even better to not tell the truth if you were uncertain for the outcome because it's impossible to withdraw our words or undo their effects once they have been spoken aloud. I consider that Simon was extremely worried about the change of his friend’s attitude toward him and then lead to the break of their relationship. But, from my perspectives, I do believe that no matter what happened, you can always got your best friend’s support. In addition, your best friend must have already known you well, so he or she can give you the most appropriate suggestion based on the situation you face with.

I’m pretty looking forward to the following chapters to see how the relationship between Simon and Blue will change. Additionally, I'm wondering whether Simon will stop emailing with Blue to prevent him from being revealed and blackmailed or not. And how will Simon deal with Martin’s threat to protect himself as well as Blue.