I love YA literature. Judge me, I don’t care. You ask me if I’d rather read Maggie Stiefvater or Shakespeare and I’m choosing Steifvater every time. YA literature is what I grew up on. It shaped me. So, I will never be ashamed of walking back into that section of Barnes & Nobel, because I know I’m coming out of there with something I’ll actually want to read.

“Simon Versus the Homo Sapiens Agenda” by Becky Albertalli is the latest of my most fruitful purchases from the YA section. I downloaded the book in February – via Audible – and spent an entire night cleaning my house so I could finish it. Needless to say, it was brilliant. It’s the kind of book that I’m happy LGBTQ youth have access to because it’s not a sad story or a story rife with homophobia. “Simon Versus the Homo Sapiens Agenda” gives LGBTQ youth a quirky gay kid to look up to and to learn from.

Simon Spier is maneuvering around the same obstacles as every other teenager: his parents, his friends, and the boys he likes. It is a warm and ultimately happy story about Simon getting into his first high school relationship, understanding his place in the world, and figuring out how to maintain his friendships. This particular story centers on the pen-pal trope. Think “You’ve Got Mail” without the competition over bookstores. It is something we have seen countless times, but instead of a girl falling in love with a guy, it’s a guy falling in love with a guy.

The relationship between Blue and Simon is squeal-inducing. It is cliché and awkward, and sometimes a giant mess, just like any other normal high school relationship in literature. “Simon Versus the Homo Sapiens Agenda” is important, and it will continue to be important for generations to come. And, it already has its own film.

“Love, Simon” featuring “Jurassic World’s” Nick Robinson as Simon Speir debuts March 16, 2018. The movie also features veteran talents: Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel as Simon’s parents. “13 Reasons Why’s” Katherine Langford plays Leah, a close friend of Simon. The trailer was released November 29, 2017.

Some highlights of the trailer include, Bram’s “post-presidency Obama” costume, Simon shouting compliments to a guy that couldn’t possibly hear him, and of course the heterosexual “coming out” at the end of the trailer. The movie looks adorable and hilarious; everything you need from a romantic comedy set in high school.

I have never been one of those to harp on the differences between novel and script – because I recognize there is a lot of work condensing a novel into a two hour film – so I am nothing but genuinely excited for this film. The cast looks phenomenal. Nick Robinson nails the awkward quirkiness of Simon and he does not seem stiff in the role, which sometimes occurs when an assumed straight actor plays an LGBTQ character (see Matthew Daddario and Harry Shum Jr. on Freeform’s “Shadowhunters”).

The movie is revolutionary simply because it’s a wide release of a story about a gay protagonist finding love without the struggle against homophobia. “Love, Simon” will hopefully show creators in Hollywood that we’re ready for diversity in film, and that not every LGBTQ story must be filled with insurmountable angst. Sometimes it’s as simple as a boy falling in love with another boy.