Leah on the Offbeat

Okay so this Book was definitely good but I wasn’t as into the story as I was with Simon vs the Homo sapiens agenda. I wasn’t fangirling as much simply because there were so many problems. Also I did not like Leah and at the same time I love that she exists as the main character. Her flaws, her issues and self doubts are just very real and were written realistically. That’s refreshing, especially because she wasn’t as cliche of a self conscious girl as many other main characters. Still sometimes she was too b*tchy and too critical for me. That’s typical for a 17/18 year old, I get it, just wasn’t for me. So I liked the book, the ending was cute but for me a little bit abrupt, kind of a nice solution with the last chapter. But it didn’t catch and move me as much as the first part so there’s that. 3,5/5 Stars

Oh Lord where do i start, Leah Burke. She is literally me. Awkward a huge nerd and overthinking literally everything! It is really refreshing to see a bi-sexual and obese character who is not ashamed of her body. Its a big issue that everybody tends to be ashamed about the fact when you dont have model sizes. Leah is sarcastic and stubborn and its a brilliant book about friends, relationships and family. I also enjoyed the fact that we once again see old loved characters like Simon and Bram in this book. Over all everything changes in this book. This book was sweet, honest and true. Loved it

Eine authenitische Geschichte mit Schwächen! Der Schreibstil der Autorin war wie immer super. Man konnte das Buch sehr flüssig lesen und hatte am Ende jedes Kapitels immer das Gefühl, umbedingt weiterlesen zu müssen. Die Idee hinter der Geschichte hat mir ebenfalls sehr gut gefallen. Das Ende der Schulzeit steht an, es geht auf die Collegezeit zu und alles soll anders werden. Das ist natürlich sehr beängstigend, was im BUch auch wirklich gut rübergebracht wurde. Man hat mit der Protagonistin wirklich mitgefühlt, ihre Ängste verstanden und mit ihr mitgefiebert. Die Protaonistin Leah war mir übrigens sehr sympathisch. Ich meine, sie liebt Harry Potter und Drarry-Fanfiction und zeichnet unter anderem Fanart. Hallo? Ist das cool oder ist das cool? Und nebenbei bemerkt mag ich einfach die Art, wie sie denkt. Immer ein bisschen sarkastisch, wenn man das so sagen kann. Auch die anderen Charakteren waren auch wie bereits in Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda wirklich sympathisch und haben als Gruppe wirklich gut funktioniert. Sie waren einfach toll. Zu toll. Denn genau das ist auch gleichzeitig mein Problem gewesen. Ich mochte Leah wirklich sehr, aber irgendwie war mir die Geschichte wirklich zu langatmig. Ich habe mich jedesmal ultra auf die AUftritte von Nebencharakteren gefreut, was nicht wirklich ein gutes Zeichen ist. Nur in der Gruppe war die Geschichte wirklich interessant, was schade ist, weil Leahs restliches Leben mich größtenteils gelangweilt hat. Meiner Meinung nach ist einfach zu wenig passiert. Trotzdem war die Geschichte wirklich interessant, ich mochte die Thematik und fand es wie immer super, dass die Protagonistin und verschiedene weitere Charaktere der LGBTQ+-Gemeinschaft angehören. Deshalb bekommt das Buch von mir 3,5 Sterne!

Es war ein süßes Hörbuch und ich mochte Leah als Protagonistin sowie auch wieder die Freundschaftsgruppe sehr gerne. Allerdings habe ich sie nicht geliebt wie „Love, Simon“ und beim Ende fehlte mir etwas.

4,5 ⭐ - It was super adorable and cute omg! Becky Albertalli's writing style and humour are phenomenal and out of this world. I loved Leahs Story and I loved reading about the Creekwood Gang again!

Loved this Book soooo much. Leah and her friends gave me so much through these pages. Loved her character developement and her Relation with abby, it was a pure joy!

I loved Simon vs. the homo sapiens agenda and I also really loved this book. Although it is all about love (what I usually find quite annoying) the nerdiness of this book makes me so insanely happy that no matter what happens I'm gonna love all these characters. Give me all the HP jokes and in general nerd jokes and I'm gonna be the happiest being on this world. I root for all the characters and love lines going on because, how could you not? That it displays the same time of life that I'm in atm only helped me. I mean they have all the worries I have and it is simply so relateable. I just love this and whatever comes next will also get showered in my love!

Warning: This might be all over the place, I have really strong feelings about this book. 5 reasons why this book is terrible: 1. Leah Burke is a terrible person: While I enjoyed her character in Simon's book, she pissed me the fuck off in this one. I know she is supposed to be witty and sarcastic but she just came off being the most unlikeable character of all time. She hates everything and everyone for no reason whatsoever, I don't even know how Simon and the others can be friends with her. I would have unfriended her a long time for simply being a dick. 2. The word 'dick' brings me to my next point, the writing: Oh boy, that was atrocious. Similarly to Adam Silvera, Becky Albertelli loves to write in a very youthful and approachable way. Nothing wrong with that, right? Well, it is annoying when it's blatantly overused. There were pop culture references everywhere which just gave me the impression that Albertelli wanted to be #relatable but I was just #cringing. Personally, I like books to have a timeless feel about them which obviously isn't the case when you quote Harry Potter and/or Hamilton every other sentence. Furthermore, there were certain phrases/words that were so overused. I lost count on how many times Leah used the words 'dick' (btw I love when that word is used to describe a person. I mean people are obviously perfectly described by male genitalia, right?) or how many times 'side-eyed' another character. I for myself have lost count on how many times I cringed at that. 3. The whole stepdad subplot: Ew, that was so bad. Leah just hated on her mom's boyfriend for no reason AT ALL (she also hated on her mom for no reason at all but that's another story). He was just trying to be nice to her (mind him, most people would have just ignored Leah because she sucks), taking her shopping, buying her presents, helping her out whenever he can but Leah wasn't capable of changing her mindset about him just a fraction. I really hate that I-hate-my-mean-stepdad trope and it certainly didn't make this book any better. 4. Relationships, both romantical and platonic: Where do I even begin? I hated how the author pretty much destroyed every relationship she has created in Simon . I get that this takes place in high school and relationships in high school just aren't meant to last forever but this is ridiculous. Firstly, Nick and Abby breaking up was super random? There was no real reason for it. Secondly, the Leah/Abby pairing is the most unbelievable one ever. I feel like the author was sitting at home thinking "so how can I milk this story even more? Oh, I know: let's just pair up two characters that had no romantic interest in each other in the previous book. That's a good idea. And it's diverse so nobody will think about the plausibility. I'm a genius". Yeah, that's how I think it went. Gah. Also, Leah went on talking about how much she disliked Abby for pretty much 80% of the book and all of sudden she's head over heels for her? Furthermore, Leah being an asshole to Garrett was never mentioned or explained in the novel. That again just shows how terrible Ms. Burke is. I'm just glad that Albertelli didn't break up Simon and Bram. 5. Bad bisexual representation: I won't really go into this aspect in detail because that would take forever and this review is long enough already. Let me just say that the aspect that Abby wasn't "bi enough" is the worst thing I'ver ever heard. I'm usually not someone who is easily triggered by problematic stuff but that right there is incredibly problematic. And not just that, but Leah, on the other hand, thinks of herself as a gold-star bisexual. I never ever want to hear something along the lines of "not bi enough". That's just the most stupid phrase of all time. I could probably give you 132 more reasons why this book is terrible but I think the 5 reasons I listed above should be enough. This was probably the last book I'll ever read by this author. While I liked her debut novel, this just showed how bad of an author she is. She doesn't know what she's talking about, she overuses pop culture in her writing and she's just desperately trying to find the next diverse book she can write. Sadly, most people will then completely forget about the actual plot of her books. But hey, at least it's diverse, right?

Amazing Book. I can't get enough of them.

read my complete review: http://isabellsbooks.blogspot.com/ Instagram: isleepnaked Can you read it if you haven't read Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda beforehand? Yes, you can. But.. I sort of did do that myself since it's been quite a while that I've read Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda myself - I think I read it for the first time in 2016. So I didn't really know much about those characters anymore and found it quite hard to keep track of all the different characters at first. The book definitely expects you to know those characters and views itself as a sequel but after a while you'll get into it whether you've known the characters beforehand or not. But since Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda is a wonderful book and since its movie has just come out, I would definitely recommend to you to read Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda first! And this book obviously has major spoilers for Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda so if you want to read Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda one day, you should probably read that one first. MY THOUGHTS ON IT I love love love the cover. I wish there were more books in this beautiful colour and I think it's one of the prettiest books that I own. Turquoise is my favourite colour and this book sets such a beautiful contrast with the purple and I just adore the font and the drawing of Leah. So if I hadn't already loved Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, I certainly would have bought this just because of the amazing cover! So like I said, I found it quite hard to keep track of all the different characters at first. It felt as if the author expected the reader to have read Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda right before this book which caused some chaos for me. There were so many names and I just didn't know who they were and had a hard time figuring out who was who and who was related to whom in which way. I should have reread Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda before I read this because I decided to reread it after I've read Leah on the Offbeat and then I knew all the characters and could follow the story right from the beginning. But as I said- although I felt thrown into this group of friends at first - I figured it out eventually. I just think that it would have been nice if the author had included a little bit of a "previously on" or just some more details and reminders of the characters. That would have made the reading easier right from the beginning. Ever since it got announced that Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda (how often have I written this long title already?) will get a movie adaption, I wanted to reread the book. But I didn't think to do so BEFORE I read Leah on the Offbeat so I spoilered myself a lot because I just didn't remember a lot about Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda anymore. What I loved most about this book - besides its beautiful cover - were all the Harry Potter references! *-* If you know anything about me you know that I'm a huge Potterhead and that I love nothing more in a book than Harry Potter references. And that was also what made me love Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda (I'm going to copy and paste this from now on..) so much because I remembered that it had a lot. But since I've reread Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda right after Leah on the Offbeat, I can now confirm that Leah on the Offbeat has a LOT more! And the references were just amazing - I think I posted lots of them in my Instagram Story and I've also seen others post them. Becky Albertalli is definitely the Queen of Harry Potter references. And the references were especially great this time because Leah, the main character, is a Slytherin - like me. ;) And I could therefore identify a lot with her and loved that. I think every book character should get sorted into a house. That should be the basic description of any character really: brown hair, blue eyes and Ravenclaw. I'd love that. I liked Leah but I LOVED Simon. Simon was just perfect as a side-character. Every time he appeared he just made me want to reread Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda so badly. Leah does not only identify as as Slytherin but also as bisexual. And since bisexual characters are still underrepresented in the media I just love that Becky Albertalli explored this sexuality. I also really liked the girl-girl romance in this book and thought that it was done in a lovely way and I definitely shipped the two. (I don't know if it is a spoiler to say who Leah is in love with, that's why I don't mention her name.) There was also a male love interest for Leah and I kinda wished that he would have been more of an option for Leah because that would have created more struggles and would have made the book way more thrilling. The book slowed down a lot in the middle but I nevertheless read through it extremely quickly. That's mainly due to the rather easy writing style of Becky Albertalli. Her books are incredibly easy and quickly to read through and are definitely a good choice to start reading English books. Leah was definitely not your average character. She's quite sarcastic and has a really refreshing personality. CONCLUSION What bothered me the most in this book was the lightness of it. It was just not an extraordinary or even a deep book. And now that I've reread Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda and didn't love it as much as I initially did and since I also didn't really love Becky Albertalli's last book The Upside of Unrequited (click here for my review) I just think that Albertalli's books are just meant to be a light and uplifting read that doesn't go very deep and just entertains you a bit for a while and wants nothing more than that. And I know that I shouldn't compare every book I read with CALL ME BY YOUR NAME but since this is my favourite book of 2018 I just have to. And when I think about the depths that CMBYN has explored I just cannot but be a bit disappointed in Leah on the Offbeat. Maybe if I've read Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda right beforehand I would have lowered my expectations because I used to adore this book and now I am not as hyped anymore. So, to sum it up, Leah on the Offbeat is definitely a nice, entertaining, lovely book which I praise for having bisexual representation in it and love for its many Harry Potter references (there could have been even way more in it - especially in the second half!) and for the extremely adorable Simon scenes, but which disappoints in its lack of going deeper and really touching the reader. MY RATING I award this book with 3,5 out of 5 stars.