Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli
Ahhhh, I have been waiting for this book for so long! After reading (and loving) Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, and watching the film (and loving that as well), I was eagerly awaiting to join my favourite group of fictional friends again and to see what they get up to.
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 centre 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.
Leah didn’t appear a lot in Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, so I was excited that she would be the star of her own novel, and to see where Albertalli took her character. I admit that Leah wasn’t my FAVOURITE character in Simon, but still… I was happy to be reading more about her.
“I hate when assholes have talent. I want to live in a world where good people rule at everything and shitty people suck at everything.”
― Leah on the Offbeat
During Leah on the Offbeat, she continued to not be my favourite. She came across as so mean! I mean, I get that people can be sarcastic, but Leah crossed the line a lot of times and just acted awfully towards her friends. And she also has A LOT of double-standards. Leah had come out as bi to her Mother when she was little but hadn’t told her group of friends about her sexuality. In Simon, Leah was so angry at Simon for not telling her that he was gay, and for not coming out to her first, but then… Well… She doesn’t tell Simon that she’s bi… So I don’t get why she’s like that. Don’t get me wrong, I know people aren’t perfect, but it just seemed silly for her to be like that.
Another time during the novel where Leah seemed way too harsh, was when she was leading Garrett on throughout the WHOLE book. Garrett was such a sweet person, and he was so kind towards Leah and helped her out with things, and he asked her to prom… And Leah KNEW that she liked Abby, yet kept flirting with Garrett, which wasn’t fair at all. I’m also not completely sure about this, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that Leah ever apologised for her behaviour towards him.
“I swear, people can’t wrap their minds around the concept of a fat girl who doesn’t diet. Is it that hard to believe I might actually like my body?”
― Leah on the Offbeat
Before I go onto the positives of the book, I need to say one thing that has been deemed problematic by the book community:
There is a scene in Leah on the Offbeat where Leah appears to be Queer Policing, and a lot of bisexual/gay readers have stated that they have been hurt by this scene. For an own voices review on this, read Hollie’s review of Leah on the Offbeat. I do kind of feel awkward having an opinion on this scene because I’m straight, but I do feel like Leah acted quite horribly towards Abby. However, before this whole scene, Abby did say that she was “just a straight girl experimenting” when she kissed Leah, and I can understand that this really hurt Leah’s feelings. Then, a few days later, Abby turns around and states that she likes Leah. From Leah’s perspective, this can feel like whiplash because she has no idea where she stands with Abby BUT THAT DOES NOT GIVE LEAH THE RIGHT to treat Abby like rubbish and to pressure her into giving herself a label. It is NOT OKAY to pressure anyone into being someone who they are not comfortable with. Feelings are big and messy, and teenagers DO NOT have all the answers about their sexuality, and people who are bisexual/gay have a lot of trouble figuring out who they are and telling themselves that it’s okay to feel like that. For Leah to tell Abby that she couldn’t label herself as “a little bit bi” when Abby was very confused about her own sexuality was just a no. Just because Leah has had her sexuality figured out from when she was a child, this doesn’t mean that she gets to decide someone else’s label and to pressure them into taking on this label.
“I’ve never understood the appeal of drinking. It’s not like liquor tastes good. I mean, I know it’s not about that. It’s about feeling loose and unstoppable. Simon described it to me once. He said drinking lets you say and do things without filtering or overthinking. But I don’t get how that’s a good thing”
― Leah on the Offbeat
Ok, now onto the positives.
The humour in this book is just brilliant. It was reminiscent of the humour in Simon and I loved the hilarious one-liners that happened throughout the book. Even though the book was dealing with issues such as sexuality, and mental health, the humour made this book seem like a lighter read and I loved how Leah swears. I’m tired of reading YA books where the characters DON’T SWEAR! I swear so much, so seeing a character that reflects my own speaking habits was so good. I also loved all of the geeky references that were in this books. I was raised a geek, okay? I love reading geeky references in books.
I also loved how Leah was proud of her plus-sized body, and how she just didn’t think much of it. She knew that it was her body and dealt with it. It wasn’t the main focus of the novel which was refreshing, and Leah just didn’t really care about what her body was like, which is a personality trait that I am completely jealous of. However, there are a few times that Leah mentions her weight in relation to her mental well-being and this is actually something that Becky Albertalli has talked about being emotionally cathartic for her. So even though this novel doesn’t explore Leah as a plus-sized girlTM it’s still nice to see Albertalli acknowledge that body weight can have a detriment on mental health.
“Am I the worst person?”
“Well, no,” says Simon. “That would be Voldemort.”― Leah on the Offbeat
This has nothing to do with Leah, but I am so happy that Simon went to the college that HE WAS MORE COMFORTABLE WITH, and didn’t just follow Bram. Life is too short to just follow people around, and not be completely happy with where you are in life. I’ve seen a few reviews where people say that it’s stupid that Simon went to a college that seemed ‘gayer’. But for me, if he felt more comfortable in a college that had a bigger gay scene, then surely, that would be the right place for him to go?? Other reviewers have said that life is too short to not be with the people you love, but the college that Simon wants to go to, and the college that Bram wants to go to, is only an hour away. It’s not like it’s on the other side of the country. It’s an hour. It’s nothing.
Other things that I absolutely loved about this novel:
- I love the relationship between Leah and her Mom
- I also loved reading more about Simon and Bram. Uggghhhh, I love them so much, and whenever they made an appearance, they completely stole the show.
Overall, this was an enjoyable novel. It wasn’t as good as Simon, and it wasn’t as good as The Upside of Unrequited, but it will still a light-hearted read. I can definitely see the problematic element of this book, and I really thought that Albertalli knew better than to include Queer Policing in her novels, especially since she wrote Simon with such perfection. I am so sad that this book has made people feel uncomfortable, and I hope that Albertalli takes this feedback into consideration for her other novels.
2 thoughts on “Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli”
Comments are closed.