Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda Themes

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda begins with sixteen-year-old Simon, the titular protagonist, being robbed of his agency and control over his own life—specifically, when how, and if he chooses to come out to his friends and family as gay. After his classmate Martin Addison discovers Simon's private and romantic emails on a school computer to a mysterious boy named Blue, Martin proceeds to blackmail Simon into helping him in his own romantic…

After spending months emailing about the difficulties of coming out as gay with a boy who goes by the pseudonym Blue, Simon is shocked to discover that, contrary to his assumptions, Blue (who is really Bram) is black. Realizing his own narrowmindedness, Simon asks himself why it is that people assume that someone is straight and white until they discover evidence to the contrary. With this question, Simon begins to give voice to the…

As a coming of age novel, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda necessarily tackles the issues that sixteen-year-old Simon faces in his process of growing up and coming out. However, the novel also pays close attention to the ways in which Simon's entire nuclear family is in a very similar process of growth and development. With Simon's older sister, Alice, out of state at her first year of college, and with his younger sister…