4.5 stars

Leah Burke, a character previously met in Simon Vs the Homosapiens Agenda, is prickly, stands up for what she believes in and secretly, a bit of a marshmallow on the inside. As she gets ready to graduate high school, Leah starts dealing with crushes, figuring out how to come out to her friends that she’s bi, and might realise other people have surprises up their sleeves too.

I was so nervous going into this book because number one: I’d already heard a lot of middling reviews and a lot of people that loved Simon felt disappointed by this one and number two: I really didn’t like Leah in Simon. BUT this book totally made me a Leah person. I now love Leah, who would have ever guessed that!

The pairing in this book was a shocker for me too when I first realised the romantic coupling. They’re not people I would put together and it seemed totally off to me (and also wonder why there couldn’t just be new people added from the same town or HS) BUT I loved them. I really felt like the chemistry was there, the adorable awkwardness and by the end I totally shipped them.

This book just blew me away and took me by surprise. Leah could definitely have been a bit nicer to people in this book, especially her mom, and she has a tendency to take things too far sometimes (even when it’s not always her place) but I still loved her despite it all. That’s just Leah, take her or leave her.

I understand people’s frustrations over the bisexuality conversation that Leah had with another character in this book and what Leah said about dismissing someone’s label and challenging them on their identity was wrong, no doubt about it. And I wish she could have acknowledged that properly by the end of the book but in my eyes, an older, wiser Leah who has spent more time in the LGTBQIA+ community will eventually look back on that conversation and see where she went wrong, and might actually apologise. One can hope.