Love Simon is a new coming of age film based on Beck Albertalli’s novel Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda. Simon is a high schooler that hasn’t told anyone that he’s gay. When another closeted boy at his school posts anonymously on the school blog, Simon reaches out to him. He and the mysterious Blue quickly fall for each other, but neither knows the other’s identity.
Here are 4 ways the movie and book differ. Spoilers for both versions below.
1. Simon’s Sister
Book: Simon has two sisters, Nora and Alice. Simon is very close to his sisters and they help him after he is outed. Nora is in high school with him and is in a band with Leah called Emoji. Alice is in college and has a secret boyfriend, who later helps her set up some alone time for Simon and Blue.
Movie: Simon has one sister. She’s younger than him and is obsessed with cooking. She tries to be helpful after Simon is outed, but Simon lashes out at her. The siblings love each other and she defends him after he comes out to their parents.
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2. Leah’s Crush
Book: Leah has a massive crush on Nick. Her crush is quite obvious to Simon and he suspects Nick knows as well. She can tell Nick likes Abby, which makes her jealous.
Movie: Leah has a secret crush on Simon. Simon misreads this as a crush on Nick. He tries to set Nick up with her to deter Nick from asking out Abby.
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3. Blue’s Emails
Book: Martin makes a reference to Blue in the blog post that only Simon would catch on to. No one other than Martin knows about Blue. After Simon is outed, Blue continues talking to Simon without revealing his own identity with the hope that Simon will guess correctly.
Movie: The blog post that outs Simon contains screenshots of the emails with Blue. Blue is so afraid of being outed himself that he panics and goes silent, deleting the email account. Since he can’t email him, Simon makes his own blog post telling Blue where to meet him.
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4. Leah and Simon
Book: Leah is his best friend, but he’s shown spending more time with Abby. Leah’s jealousy of Abby causes her to be frustrating to hang out with, so the gang goes to a party without Leah. She temporarily breaks up with her friends because of this. The party incident and the fact that Simon comes out to Abby first causes her to fear that she is being replaced as his best friend.
Movie: Leah’s change of crush minimizes her jealousy of Abby, so the party incident never happens. Simon is shown spending a fairly equal amount of time with Abby and Leah. She’s the first to forgive him after the whole group gets mad at him.
Don’t miss the sequel novel Leah on the Offbeat!
