Leah on the Offbeat | Becky Albertalli | Review
“Imagine going about your day knowing someone’s carrying you in their mind. That has to be the best part of being in love- the feeling of having a home in some else’s brain.”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. - Goodreads
I seem to be reading a lot of LGBT books this year, and I wonder why that is. Perhaps there are more of them than there used to be, or they're on my radar more because so many of them are just such good reads. *Shrugs* Who knows. What I do know is that I am totally cool with that, and if YA books continue to be anything like Leah on the Offbeat, then bring.it.on.
After reading Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda earlier in the year, I absolutely loved the character of Leah Burke, so when I saw that Becky Albertalli had written another book from Leah's perspective, I was super excited. And she did not disappoint.
Leah is a brilliant gem of a character and I love her. She is this sassy, kick-ass drummer of a teen, who rocks her own style, and while she hasn't come out to her friends, her mum knows she's bi and is 100% supportive of that. Leah has a great way with words and I found myself laughing out loud at points, and then getting really emotional at times. Her banter with her friends and potential boyfriends/girlfriends is excellent, and Albertalli writes it wonderfully.
“I'm basically your resident fat Slytherin Rory Gilmore.”It's your typical great teen novel, in a way, with high school ending, prom to worry about, break ups and make ups, road trips to colleges they might be attending, and a whole lot of drama. But it's also this sweet story of a girl figuring out who she is, not for herself necessarily - she already knows that - but perhaps who she is in relation to others.
Oh, and I have to mention that we do get a lot of Simon in this book, which is wonderful because I didn't want his story to end either. Being in the same tight circle of friends as Leah, we discover more about Simon and his relationships, and what their plans are after they graduate. We're one year on from the events in Simon Vs so in a way, it feels like a sequel even if it's Leah's story, Leah's focus, and not Simon's.
One last thing before you rush out to get yourself a copy: the geek in this book was my all time favourite thing ever. Do you know how many references there are to Harry Potter? So.Many!
“You can’t just like Harry Potter. You have to be balls-out obsessed with it.”Other wonderfully geeky things that Leah brings up include (but not limited to): Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (the Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice musical that I basically grew up on), Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, Love Actually, Grease, and Star Wars movies, Hamilton the show, HGTV, Roswell (okay, not specifically the show but it's a street name in the book and I like to think it's in reference), Gilmore Girls, Doctor Who, and even things like fan fiction and OTP (one true pairing). It was a top-notch geeky book, and I loved everything about it.
If you read and loved Simon Vs then you need to pick up Leah on the Offbeat.
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