Love, Simon is the newest young adult fiction novel to make its appearance on the big screen.

The movie opened in theaters on March 16 and is based on the novel, Simon vs. The Homosapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli. Albertalli spoke to Kettle Run readers during the first week of October. The librarians paid to bring her to Nokesville. While here, she talked to students about her upcoming movie. Many of them have been waiting for this movie to hit theaters.

“We are super excited to see this novel be turned into a film,” freshman Brooke Arthur said. “We know it is going to be great!”

The film tells the story of a young, gay protagonist named Simon. Simon starts to receive emails from someone named “Blue,” and a romance blossoms between the two. Simon’s family and friends do not know he is gay, and a classmate threatens to “out” Simon if Simon doesn’t get him a date with Abby. Students hope that since Albertalli was involved in the production of the movie, it will remain true to the storyline.

“I love the fact that Becky was overseeing the film’s creation,” freshman Faith Schaefer said, “so I expect that it will follow the book really well.”

“I really enjoy the romance in the novel between ‘Blue’ and Simon,” junior Stacy Stiles said. “I’m excited to see how they will portray the emails between the two in the movie because in the book they wrote them out. I think this movie will be just as cute as the book. If you don’t like this type of romance, please don’t hate on the movie or the book. No one is forcing you to see it.”

Love, Simon is being touted as the first major-studiobacked romantic comedy with a gay teen protagonist.

“I think that it is amazing that the book, whose story is about a closted gay kid, is getting its own movie,” junior Claire Sutliff said. “I think the fact that the media coverage has been this positive so far is not only amazing but also so uplifting.”

Sophomore Kiyanna Green read the novel and learned a lot from it.

“I really enjoyed reading the novel,” Green said. “It really helped to open my eyes to the content in the book.”

Schaefer can’t wait to see the movie.

“I really liked the book and I really hope that the movie will provide the same feelings that I had while reading it,” Schaefer said.