Review: Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertali

Book: Leah on the Offbeat
Author: Becky Albertali
Series: Creekwood #2
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 343

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.

I will admit, after seeing the move Love, Simon, I can't stop seeing Alexandra Shipp as Abby in my head. Hmm... Anyway! This will be a short review.

One year after the adorable story to Simon VS the Homosapien's Agenda: enter Leah, senior year, finding herself trying to deal with tense friendships, prom, and feelings. Which an obvious recipe for disaster, even for this group of tight-knit Shady Creek bunch.

The main two problems that were tearing Leah's friends apart were relationships and university. Relationships went hand in hand with the problem of prom (the whole "I'm going to prom with X person because we're in a relationship"), and university...well, yeah. Stressful, competitive, great at pitting people against each other in regards to who got in and who didn't. Ehhh, so true. But still, those were both very realist problems, and the author did a wonderful job portraying how easily those two can impact lives.

I enjoyed reading about Leah, though I felt like her personal arc was a bit abrupt at times. She was sarcastic, but I felt like it sometimes got the better of her and the narrative at times. Her romantic interest development was completely fine, and I liked how Leah became a key instrument in helping another realize themselves!

Overall, there wasn't really as much build up as I would have anticipated, and it wasn't as cute of a read as Simon's story, but it's still a good read!