Review: Leah on the Offbeat – by Becky Albertalli

 

Title: Leah on the Offbeat
Author: Becky Albertalli
Publisher: Penguin
Format: E-ARC via Netgalley
Publication Date: 3rd May 2018
Rating: 4.5 Stars

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Summary

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.

Disclaimer

I received an uncorrected advanced reader copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. This has not influenced my opinions, or the content of this review in any way.

Content/ Trigger Warnings

Racism (challenged), bi-phobia, anti-fat remarks

My Thoughts

Okay, confession time, Leah was never my favourite character in Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, but now having read this I feel like I finally understand her, and I love her so much for it. She has a lot of shields up to protect herself from getting hurt, which means she is often misunderstood, she’s fiercely loyal but there’s also a vulnerability underneath. She is very aware of the ways that she is different from her friends, especially when it comes down to money. She has a lot of feelings that she’s not comfortable expressing.

I loved the way this book focused on the end of high school, and the challenges of deciding your future, and how moving on to college can put strain on relationships. I also really loved seeing all the friendships (and relationships) that I loved in Simon’s book from another angle. I’m not going into specifics because I want to keep this review as spoiler free as possible, but there are some really cute scenes in this book that made me really happy.

One thing that I really appreciated was Leah’s body positivity in this book. She is fat, but she feels very positive about her body, and often internally challenges peoples anti-fat remarks. It’s so refreshing to read books like this, because so much of the media is full of anti-fat messages, and it can really effect ones self-esteem. It took years for me to accept that my body will never be skinny, and to learn to love my shape, so characters like Leah really mean a lot to me in that respect.

I really like the way that Leah’s sexuality was handled in this book. She knows who she is, and has done for quite some time. She just can’t bring her self to open up to other people about it. It’s not something that you see very often, especially in a female character. Having said that there is a scene in this book that could be harmful for some readers. There is a certain scene where one character says she is a little bit bisexual, and she is told there is no such thing, rather than given support. This is harmful, suggesting that she isn’t queer enough, and is unfortunately unchallenged in the book, it has hurt some readers, understandably, so please be aware of it going in.

Overall, if you enjoyed Becky Albertalli’s other books then I definitely recommend picking up this one too. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and read the whole thing in less than I day. It gave me a lot of feelings, had more than a few cute moments, I loved revisiting the characters I loved so much in the other books, not to mention finally getting to know Leah much better.

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