I like things that don't end

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I think it is safe to say that most of us spend our four years of High School trying to figure out who we are or who we are going to be.  Maybe you were a cheerleader, an athlete, a mathlete, or perhaps you spent most of your time just trying to be yourself.  Simon is a semi average High School kid who loves Oreos, his best friends, his dog Bieber, and his supportive "making a big deal" family.  I would like to say it's hard to imagine someone who has such a great support system feel the need to hide something about themselves, but High School will do that to anyone.

Following Simon around his high school, play rehearsals, waffle house, and a night on the town, you learn about friendship, family, sexuality, and self-acceptance.

When Simon found Blue on Tumblr in response to a post-Blue made, Simon said, "I guess it was about loneliness. And it's funny because I don't really think of myself as lonely. But there was something so familiar about the way Blue described the feeling." (Albertalli 18). When Simon felt that familiarity, it allowed the reader to see how isolating it can be to not only feel different but be different, all while hiding who you really are. It made me feel more empathetic towards his character.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Blue's Tumblr post when Simon first found Blue. Blue wrote that "people are like houses with vast rooms and tiny windows" (Albertalli 18), and I think this is a great quote that can you can carry with you throughout the entire book. I found myself returning to this quote more than once before I came across it again later on. People tend to have so much more than what they allow people to see. We are the vast rooms, and the tiny windows are people like Blue, who we might let in, little by little.

I don't have much more time, but I wanted to share a couple more quotes that I loved. 

"He talked about the ocean between people. And how the whole point of everything is to find a shore worth swimming to." (Albertalli 18)

"Maybe it would be different if we lived in New York, but I don't know how to be gay in Georgia" (Albertalli 20)

"But I'm tired of coming out. All I ever do is come out. I try not to change, but I keep changing, in all these tiny ways." (Albertalli 56)

"Only people who have to think about their identity are the ones who don't fit that mold" (Albertalli 147)





Comments

  1. Nalayna HyattSeptember 24, 2020 at 7:21 AM

    Kels, I love this post and that you included the quote from Blue's tumblr post about the tiny houses as well as the one about the oceans between people. Both of these quotes are great representations of how complex we as people are. We all have layers upon layers upon layers and it can be difficult to let people in sometimes, especially when you're hiding a huge part of your life like Simon and Blue. It's important not to judge others too harshly until you know their full story and have seen the vast houses that they are.

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