A glimpse into the future of Simon and his pals…
Genre: Y/A, Contemporary, Romance, LGBT
No. of pages: 128
It’s been more than a year since Simon and Blue turned their anonymous online flirtation into an IRL relationship, and just a few months since Abby and Leah’s unforgettable night at senior prom.
Now the Creekwood High crew are first years at different colleges, navigating friendship and romance the way their story began—on email.
I was expecting a novel (because I didn’t read the blurb – I just saw another release in the Simonverse and added to cart,) so when a novella arrived I wasn’t too disappointed. But then to find it’s not entirely a novella, but a collection of emails between the ‘Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda’ cast, it kinda knocked a lot of the joy out of my sails.
Granted we get more Simon goodness and more Leah sarcasm… and get to glimpse into the first year after graduating high school. It’s all adorably cute and fluffy and full of love and dad jokes. But it doesn’t really tell a story. Just a lot of I miss you’s and I love you’s. ‘Love, Creekwood’ is definitely solely for the fans who have read the books (so you know who all the players are.) It does fill in a bit of missing pieces from the novels, the movie and the ‘Love, Victor’ television series.
There’s not a big storyline, and not a heck of a lot of character development. It’s not like you have to read between the lines of the emails, it’s all spelled out for you. I didn’t get any surprises, not laugh out loud moments. And it concluded just as I thought it would.
Yes, I love the saccrine overload that is Bram and Simon; and Abby and Leah. It was great to indulge in those characters again if somewhat briefly. But I think ‘Love, Creekwood’ is just fan service. It would have been so much better if we got more about Simons family, more about the characters plans for the future, discuss some the life lessons they have learned and changed from… kind of where are we now compared to where we came from.
So, this was lovely and interesting, but nothing ground-breaking and essential to the Simonverse.
I’d recommend only for hard-core stans of the Simonverse.
Overall feeling: fun but slightly disappointing.
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Casey Carlisle 