Rating:
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.
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** NOTE that since this is the sequel to Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, it will contain some spoilers from the first book
Leah Burke – she’s spunky, confident, and unrelenting. I loved Leah in Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda and she did not disappoint in her own book. That said, Leah is not perfect. She’s highly opinionated and at times that can come off as rude and obnoxious. But she also usually calls herself out for her behavior or her friends do.
In Leah on the Offbeat, Leah is trying to figure out her feelings for Abby Suo. She’s also trying to figure out when and how to tell her friends she’s bisexual – she knows they will be supportive but it’s also a huge step for her and she doesn’t know if she’s ready to take it just yet.
The romance in the book is pretty cute – especially when we know how Leah feels about Abby sooner than she herself does. I think a dual perspective would’ve been better for the book just so we could get a glimpse of what Abby was thinking during some of their scenes together.
The highlight of the book for me was definitely Simon and Bram. THEY ARE THE ABSOLUTE CUTEST TOGETHER and my heart melted every time those two were together in the book. It was so nice to revisit these two after the first book!
Through the Book Portal 
Great review, really looking forward to picking this up 🙂
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Thank you! (Sorry I’m super late in replying!) Have you gotten the chance to read it yet?
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Your welcome and its fine I haven’t had internet connection for a few weeks now anyway. I haven’t but it’s on my TBR for this month 🙂
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I read Simon and, honestly, it wasn’t really my jam. I love the concept but I couldn’t get into Albertalli’s writing style. That said, I recently watched <em.Love, Simon and SQUEEEEE! I am completely in love! Perhaps I wasn’t in the right mood? Who knows. Either way, I can honestly say I am now looking forward to reading Leah on the Off-Beat.
Have you also read The Upside of Unrequited? Is that set in this universe, too?
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Yeah, I can understand that, her writing isn’t for everyone. Love, Simon was a good movie! I’m glad you liked it! I do like the book better though 🙂 . Yes, Upside of Unrequited is also set in the same universe and some of the characters from that book are actually mentioned in this book. Upside is actually my favorite out of the three books if that’s any motivation to read it 🙂
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