REVIEW! Leah On The Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

First off I'd like to say that I did not read this as quickly as I read Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda BUT I loved it just as much (if not more).

I also need to stress how important it is that you read Simon before you read Leah, otherwise Simon will be completely ruined for you as this takes place a year after.

But this review, like my Simon review (which you can find here), is spoiler free!!!

My Rating: ★★★★★

So the blurb for this book (taken from Goodreads) is:

Leah Burke—girl-band drummer, master of deadpan, and Simon Spier’s best friend from the award-winning Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda—takes center stage in this novel of first love and senior-year angst.

When it comes to drumming, Leah Burke is usually on beat—but real life isn’t always so rhythmic. An anomaly in her friend group, she’s the only child of a young, single mom, and her life is decidedly less privileged. She loves to draw but is too self-conscious to show it. And even though her mom knows she’s bisexual, she hasn’t mustered the courage to tell her friends—not even her openly gay BFF, Simon.

So Leah really doesn’t know what to do when her rock-solid friend group starts to fracture in unexpected ways. With prom and college on the horizon, tensions are running high. It’s hard for Leah to strike the right note while the people she loves are fighting—especially when she realizes she might love one of them more than she ever intended.

Okay so I'm pretty sure Becky Albertalli has just stalked me since school and written a character based on me. I've never related to a character in a book as much as I relate to Leah. When I was 14, hiding my sexuality from everyone and had a crush on a girl there were no books around (at least not that I knew of) where the main character was a bisexual girl. Luckily for teenagers these days there's an abundance of not-heterosexual characters in books, especially in YA and honestly it makes my heart happy with how times have changed.

When I read Simon one of the things I loved most was the references to Drarry fanfic and here it is again being mentioned in this book too. I just need to stress how much this quote is my life; "I pull up some random fanfic on my phone, and then take it down the hall. I can't read Drarry in the living room, even when my mom's not home. Drarry belongs in my bedroom. I don't care if that sounds dirty." 

I think the whole part of the story where Leah's friend made the racist comment about Abby was written perfectly and hats off to Becky for making Leah a decent human being and 'overreacting'. At no point reading it did I think Leah overreacted and honestly I would have had the same reaction, I think the fact none of the others had the same reaction is what's wrong with society these days. 'Offhand' comments get swept under the rug as jokes,when they're not funny, but heaven forbid if you call someone out on it, you're called boring and told to have a sense of humour. 

On a much lighter note how freaking cute was Blue's promposal?? (Yes I'm still referring to him as Blue for people reading that haven't read Simon yet). My heart hurt for Leah at her mum's reaction to THE prom dress. Also the girls in the next dressing room with the whole 'You're not fat. You look amazing.' Oh story of a teenage girl's life. I've never got why those two things cannot go hand in hand, beauty is skin deep and those two sentences said together is essentially saying if you're fat you can't look amazing (which is total bull!)

Becky definitely gets me, she wrote a line that is literally life - "You can't just like Harry Potter. You have to be balls-out obsessed with it" Also she calls someone a monster for folding the pages in a book instead of using a bookmark and Leah uses being a Slytherin as an excuse for being cynical, seriously I love Becky Albertalli's thinking.

I actually screamed 'GO BACK' at my book when it got to a certain part near the end, I won't spoil the book but it's not often I shout at a book so know it's a big deal I did with this book... you'll find out why when you get near the end.

I have quite a few post-its at certain points of the book which I love because you can actually see where I've really loved or been passionate about things that happen, or even just little lines on the page

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Playlist for writing this post - this was my Spotify Daily Mix 2...

• Beautiful Soul by Jesse McCartney
• 2002 by Anne-Marie
• Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield
• Rewrite The Stars by Zac Efron and Zendaya (Greatest Showman)
• Party In The USA by Miley Cyrus
• Sticks and Stones by Aly & AJ
• Better by 5 Seconds of Summer
• Love Is Easy by Mcfly
• Back To You by Louis Tomlinson and Bebe Rexha