Review: Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

Published: April 24, 2018

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Format: via Overdrive

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis

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.

My Thoughts

I was so anticipating this new book from Becky Albertalli and I was so happy with the results. You don’t have to have read her previous novels but all three of her reads have characters that cross over so it does help as far as having already known who’s who. In this read, we continue with Leah, Simon’s best friend and her troubles in life.

We see how she struggles with coming out as bi with her friends although she is out to her mother. We see her relationships with her friends and how she struggles with some of them more than others. We also see her struggle to come to terms with her crush and more, as she spends time with her the worse it is to just be friends with her but she doesn’t want to tell her how she feels because she doesn’t think she’s into her.

I loved seeing the different sides to Leah. I liked how she comes off as so strong but deep down she is so unsure of what to do. She has this soft side when it comes to her crush and her feelings but she is harder on her mom. I didn’t like how she treated her mother who has raised her alone and is now dating and Leah hasn’t been the most supportive of her boyfriend choices. I get that Leah was rude and mean but I also get that its typical teen attitude.

All in all, I did enjoy this book. I liked revisiting this world that Becky Albertalli has created and all her characters that are so real you can't help but be drawn into it. At this point, I will read anything she writes and here’s to hoping for more wonderful stories from this talented author.