'Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda' perfectly captures the angst and joy of growing up

If there's one word to describe Becky Albertalli's book Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (turned rom-com Love, Simon), it's "relatable."

The book follows Simon, a closeted high schooler who begins an online romance with another student, who goes by the anonymous name "Blue." When Martin, Simon's fellow student, discovers the emails, he begins blackmailing Simon. From there, Simon must figure out how to protect his identity and who Blue is — all the while trying to navigate the messy, complicated world of high school.

It's a ambitious setup that juggles a few genres, including mystery and romance, as readers try to discover the identity of Blue and Simon slowly falls in love.

But underneath all that, Becky Albertalli has written a universal story of what it means to grow up, and how sometimes even our most confusing teenage years can also be our most magical.

This week on the MashReads Podcast, we read and discuss Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. Join us as we talk about coming out stories, what Albertalli gets right about coming-of-age stories, and more.

Then, inspired by Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, we talk about books we wish we had (or had known about) growing up, including The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman, and The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

And as always, we close the show with recommendations:

• Zach, Martha's roommate, recommends the Netflix show The World's Most Extraordinary Homes. "The show is perfect because one: it is British. There are two British co-hosts and they are just lovely people, because they are absolutely the most genuine. They just go around and look at beautiful homes and talk about the architecture. It's so simple and so perfect."

• Marc recommends the Bravo reality TV show Vanderpump Rules. "It is pop culture junk food. It's an awful, awful show. But you see yourself in it, in a strange way." He also recommends Scaachi Cole's essay on Buzzfeed, “'Vanderpump Rules' Is The Worst Show On TV That You Should Be Watching." "It's super, super funny read, and it's just a super well written essay."

• Martha recommends Vince Staple's GoFundMe project "Get Off My D*ck or Fund My Lifestyle," which was a response to critics saying that Vince Staples raps over low quality robot beats. "I love the song first of all, and I love him. But it made me think about the larger cultural conversation about people's critiques about black art, and how a lot of people who write online, or talk about hip hop, don't get it."

• MJ recommends "I wore Adidas tracksuits for week like Armie Hammer," a first-person story in which Elle writer Estelle Tang, well, wore Adidas tracksuits for a week like Armie Hammer. "The story she wrote is phenomenal, it's so funny. It's just this really great hilarious article about someone doing this ridiculous stunt."

• Also mentioned on this podcast: our interview with Tomi Adeyemi, author of Children of Blood and Bone (now a New York Times best-seller!) and Alim Kheraj's article for GQ: "The Bright Future of Queer Literature Is the Young-Adult Novel."

• And be sure to check out MJ's review of Love, Simon here.

Next week, we're reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. We hope you'll join us. If you're looking for more books coverage, be sure to follow MashReads on Facebook and Twitter.