The main characters of the “Simonverse” — the book series that began with Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda — have one more adventure together in Becky Albertalli’s novella Love, Creekwood.
The novella serves as an epilogue to both Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and its sequel Leah on the Offbeat. It takes place during the characters’ first year in college and details how Simon and Bram navigate a semi long distance relationship, while Leah and Abby (spoilers if you haven’t read Leah yet) move in and attend college together.
Love, Creekwood is unique in its storytelling in that it entirely encompasses a series of emails between the main characters, rather than a traditional narrative explaining the events of the story. At a little more than 100 pages, it is an easy story to finish quickly, but it provides a fitting update to the lives of the characters readers have come to love.
Timeline wise, the story picks up a few months after Leah on the Offbeat. The Creekwood Gang of Simon, Bram (aka Blue), Leah and Abby are navigating their first year of college. Leah and Abby have moved in together at their college in Georgia, while Bram is attending NYU and Simon is attending a small college in Pennsylvania.
From the start, it is clear that Simon and Bram struggle with the realities of having to do a long-distance relationship. They spent their last two years of high school getting so close to each other that the distance makes their hearts ache for each other. Simon frequently emails both Leah and Abby, asking for advice and occasionally just ranting all of his feelings; he also emails Bram regularly and the two again email each other using their pseudonyms from their emailing two years earlier: Jacque for Simon and Blue for Bram.
Love, Creekwood follows the Creekwood Gang from the fall to spring of their first semester in college and ends on a hopeful note for both Simon and Bram.
The novella is a perfect way to sum up the story of the Creekwood Gang and is a fitting end to the story that first began in 2015 and has blossomed into a trilogy, a film adaption and a spinoff TV series in Love, Victor (now streaming on Hulu).
Becky Albertalli is a storyteller with a knack for writing well-rounded characters who readers care about and come to think of as friends.
All proceeds from Love, Creekwood go to the Trevor Project, an American LGBT nonprofit organization that focuses on suicide prevention among LGBT youth.
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