about the book
Sixteen-year-old Simon isn’t so openly gay. While browsing his school’s unofficial Tumblr pages, he comes across a post about being gay by a guy called Blue. Simon decides to send Blue a message, hoping to find out his identity and maybe even start a relationship.
One day, Simon can’t wait to get home to check his email, so he uses a school computer…and forgets to log out. Martin, somewhat of a “goobery nerd,” gets on the computer after Simon and discovers the email. He approaches Simon about it.
Martin says it’s not a big deal—his brother is gay, too—but he took a screen shot of the email to use as blackmail. If Simon wants to keep his secret, he must help Martin become friends with the new girl, Abby, who is in Simon’s circle of friends.
Simon wonders if being found out would really change his life much? Maybe coming out to the school isn’t a bad idea. Maybe it’s time for Simon to explore his real identity.
The problem is that Simon doesn’t know how Blue will react—he’s a private guy and wouldn’t have been so careless. In fact, he doesn’t even know who Blue is. Although they both attend the same school, neither Blue nor Simon has revealed his identity to the other.
about the author
Contemporary young adult author Becky Albertalli was born and raised in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, with a younger sister and a younger brother. She started writing at a young age—preschool! At that time, her stories were mostly about her pets.
In sixth grade, Becky failed Sex Ed—she says the diagrams were “slightly overwhelming.” Soon after, she wrote and directed a tragic play based on a Lurlene McDaniel novel. She grew up reading The Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High, and then she fell in love with the Harry Potter series at the age of 16. She also had an obsession with anime, but that didn’t last very long.
Becky majored in psychology at a college in Connecticut, and studied abroad at St. Andrews in Scotland. After college, she moved to Washington, D.C. and earned a doctorate in clinical psychology. She then worked with an amazing group of gender nonconforming kids in Washington, D.C. for seven years. Now, though she is still licensed, she no longer practices.
Today, Becky lives in Roswell, Georgia, with her husband and two sons.
Source:
Author website
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