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    Leah on the Offbeat
    Leah on the Offbeat
    Leah on the Offbeat
    Audiobook7 hours

    Leah on the Offbeat

    Written by Becky Albertalli

    Narrated by Shannon Purser

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    #1 New York Times bestseller! Goodreads Choice Award for the best young adult novel of the year!

    In this sequel to the acclaimed Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda—now a major motion picture, Love, Simon—we follow Simon’s BFF Leah as she grapples with changing friendships, 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.

    She’s an anomaly in her friend group: 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.


    Plus don't miss Yes No Maybe So, Becky Albertalli's and Aisha Saeed's heartwarming and hilarious new novel, coming in 2020! 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateApr 24, 2018
    ISBN9780062822932
    Author

    Becky Albertalli

    Becky Albertalli is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of William C. Morris Award winner and National Book Award longlist title Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (now a major motion picture, Love, Simon); The Upside of Unrequited; Leah on the Offbeat; the Simonverse novella Love, Creekwood; What If It’s Us (cowritten with Adam Silvera); Yes No Maybe So (cowritten with Aisha Saeed); Kate in Waiting; and Imogen, Obviously, a Stonewall Honor Book. Becky lives with her family near Atlanta. You can visit her online at beckyalbertalli.com. 

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    Reviews for Leah on the Offbeat

    4/5

    683 ratings35 reviews

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    • 5/5
      THSI IS THE VEST FUCKING BOOK EVER me being a lesbian was very FUCKING proud of this <3

      2 people found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I enjoyed some aspects of this but not all. i loved Leah and I love her love interest and love them together, but I felt like this was written in a rush and there wasn't enough grounding to the story itself. The narrator is great!

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Omg I relate to Leah on sooooo many levels. I loved this book and I loved every single one of the Harry Potter references. I need to buy this book.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Great book. Quintessential coming of age YA novel about a high school senior navigating the trials of her final year before leaving home.

      The voice felt authentic. No forced drama or over the top antics. This is the 2nd book in the series but I never felt lost despite not reading the 1st.

      I listened to the audiobook and found the narrator to be engaging and the perfect fit for Leah.

      The fact that Leah is bisexual and overweight as well as dry humored and basically a good person is a nice bonus. And the f/f HEA? Cherry on top.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      loved this (except, sadly, Leah herself). But whoever was reading this, yikes.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This is the perfect story to continue with after the first simon book

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Leah on the offbeat was relatable on so many levels and I loved it for that! This would be a 5 star review if the book were a bit different. One of them being the fact that this book was pretty character driven and a bit less plot driven. Which sometimes made me miss a plot in the book. I love these characters but I was just hoping for a bit more of an actual plot to happen. Plus the amount of swearing in the book actually really annoyed me. But like I said if it weren't for those two things, this would've been a 5 star book.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      "I’m pretty sure this is the kind of crush you can die from."I loved "Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda" and I think this book was even better. :)"“It was amazing,” I say. “It was unicorns vomiting sunbeams.”"
    • 4/5
      This is book it great but I just don’t understand how it happened. At all. I guess Becky needed a love interest for Leah and Abby was right there. I don’t know. It’s weird. There’s no signs of it anywhere in the simonverse but I guess. It was still good. I loved seeing Simon, Bram and Nick again. Still recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      I loved Simon Vs. The Homo Saipens Agenda and The Upside of Unrequited, but this book didn't click as much! Becky is my girl, and she's lucky her writing is great! The writing is fluent. But I couldn't get down with the romance. It felt a little to obvious who was going to end up with who. I'm happy I got to see my babies back, but I feel like The Upside of Unrequited was better. This is worth the read, but the plot is a little problematic this time.
    • 2/5
      The ending was nice but I was only living for Simon and Bram through most of the story.
    • 2/5
      2.5. Very predictable premise. A real annoying lead character. Just mehhh on the lower end of the scale.
    • 3/5
      Everything felt too forced for my taste. I am really disappointed
    • 2/5
      I wanted to like this so bad, but I just couldn’t get past how negative Leah was about everything. And not only was she a very unlikable character, the story didn’t seem to have a very definite plot line until the second half of the book.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed the book! Becky Albertalli strikes again, I don’t really know what to start after this since I’ve read all of her books now.
      Also, Shannon Purser is the perfect narrator for this story!
    • 5/5
      absolutely loved this book! Leah's character grows so much. Becky Albertalli does it again!
    • 5/5
      Loved this almost as much as I did Simon.
    • 3/5
      I liked this just as much as the first book in the series and in fact I liked Simon even more in this book then I did in his. I think the reason for that is when Simon choose the college that was the better fit for him then just following his boyfriend to NYC. But Leah was so pissed at Simon for coming out to Abby first but she'd known far longer that she was bi and never told Simon even after he came out. She actually comes out to Abby first too in this book.
    • 4/5
      I went into this book with kind of low expectations. I had read The Upside of Unrequited and gave that a 3.5, and I read Simon vs the Homosapiens Agenda and gave that 5 stars. After the reviews I heard about Leah on the Offbeat, I was expecting this to rate closer to a 3, but I actually ended up liking it a lot more than I expected. Yes, Leah is very snarky, but I feel a lot of that has to do with low self esteem issues that she has. This story is supposed to be about her trying to figure out how to come out to her friends as bisexual. Coming out to her mom was easy, but coming out to her friends is a little trickier. Also she is dealing with feelings that she is having towards someone. Yes, all of that was part of the book, but to me the whole book was really about this group of friends that are all graduating high school and getting ready to spread out all over the place going to different colleges or in the case of some not going to college and how they all are adjusting to this part of their lives. Some people will have to say goodbye while others become closer. This aspect of the story is why I enjoyed it so much.
    • 4/5
      diverse teen fiction (fat, bi teen has crush on her friend's black, questioning girlfriend, other LGBTQA characters graduating from a high school in Georgia)
      Apparently other people find Leah annoying and one-dimensional, but I think she's hilarious and snarky, just like the rest of her friends (though maybe a bit angsty, as in "I don't even know what I want, but why is this happening to me?"). I may have liked Simon's story (Creekwood #1) better but honestly don't remember much from it at this point. So, this works as a standalone, too.

      LGBTA notes *spoiler alert* : Leah sort of jumps all over Abby for saying she's only "a little bit bi" meaning that she'd heretofore been attracted only to males, but finds herself attracted to Leah. Abby did respond with the fact that "other people do not get to choose her label" (paraphrasing here), but I thought Leah's attack was sort of unfair (sort of like how some gays don't accept bisexualism as a real thing when in reality there is a whole spectrum of things people can identify themselves as--even if "a little bit bi" isn't, perhaps, the correct term if that's really what they mean). But Leah was already having a rough month, and I could understand why she'd be angered by her perception of what Abby was saying. I'm of the opinion that the whole process of questioning/coming out to people can be hard enough as it is and Leah should probably have been more sensitive to that (I don't remember her apologizing for it later; instead Abby revises her statement to say she's totally bi after they've made up and come out to their friends).
    • 2/5
      Honestly, this felt like bad fan fiction of the (really good) first book.
    • 2/5
      I can't even with all the drama and anguish in this book. I'm actually reasonably angry that this book centered on the chasing-a-straight-girl plot that populates so much of queer women's cultural texts. I'm glad Becky Albertalli gave us a bi character, but not at the expense of nuance or the integrity of her world in the previous book.
    • 4/5
      Leah is great, annoying, but great. I say annoying because Leah and her overthinking are just like me sometimes and I annoy myself when I do that. It's nice to learn what really was bugging Leah in the first book, and even better to see some bi representation up close. Anyway, this is the story of someone who overthinks learning to let go just a little, and if you need that, then you should check this one out.
    • 4/5
      I love that this book has a good amount of Simon in it from Simon vs the Homosapiens Agenda (Love Simon). It is a coming of age story and it is cute. The main character reminds me of how high school is and how scary college can be. It’s a great story for anyone that loves to read young adult books.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this more than I expected to, it was a typical teen prom drama, but I got sucked in.
    • 4/5
      Leah and her friends are all getting ready to attend prom, finish high school, and move on to college, which leads to a lot of confusion and messy emotions. For Leah in particular, a lot is up in the air as she has not told any of her friends about her bisexuality or where her romantic feelings lie.This sequel to Simon versus the Homo Sapiens Agenda takes on the perspective of another member in Simon's friend group. It's an interesting way to still have a 'problem novel' that deals with the same characters while allowing the previous protagonist to continue to live his happy ending. Leah is another compelling character, although having her interior thoughts really helps with that. I found myself a bit frustrated with her from time to time when she was making problems worse by never speaking up. However, that is true to life and especially to teens, which is fitting with Albertalli's writing style that has a good grip on high school students and their issues (good or bad). Here she does tackle a number of heavy issues (e.g., racism, fat shaming, etc.), although in a fashion that still feels entertaining on the whole. Once again, the happy ending might be a little too neat for some readers, but it's nice to occasionally have a book that isn't all doom and gloom.For the audiobook reader, Shannon Purser did a decent job. I felt like her narration style fit Leah's character well, but she didn't do a lot of very distinct voices, which could get a bit tricky in scenes heavy with dialogue. Her enunciation wasn't always super clear either meaning sometimes something like "fan girl" could sound like "fang earl" for a moment. After a while though, I got used to her style of speech and that seemed to help.
    • 2/5
      I loved "Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda" which made this book a profound disappointment. Two weaknesses.First, the plot is thin for a 300+ page book. A group of high school seniors (the same group we met in Simon) is close to graduation. They are planning their lives after high school, and getting ready for the prom. Several tangled relationships are what the entire book is about, primarily bisexual protagonist Leah's crush on heterosexual (or is she?) Abby. These relationships and crushes are discussed ad nauseam.The second and more serious problem is that Leah is simply a loathsome character. All of her friends are wonderful people... kind, thoughtful, generous, polite... Leah is moody, angry, ill tempered, selfish, jaded and generally a miserable person. She uses profanity like punctuation marks. (Granted, some people talk like that, particularly some teens. I myself do not enjoy being in the presence of such people, and neither do I enjoy reading a book in which obscenities are on nearly every page.) I found it impossible to believe that Leah's set of wonderful friends would ever have welcomed her into their clique, or that she would even want to be a part of their clique. I definitely couldn't imagine either Abby or Garrett having a crush on her, because there just wasn't anything in her personality to like.In the end, she seems to have learned nothing, gained no insights into life, and is still a dreadfully self-centered and obnoxious person... but she gets everything she wanted.I'll give it 1/2 star above one for a few chuckles here and there... especially when the whole gang goes to the dinner that Garrett kindly made reservations for on prom night.
    • 4/5
      where is my girlfriend!!!!!!!!!!!!
    • 5/5
      "I’m pretty sure this is the kind of crush you can die from."I loved "Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda" and I think this book was even better. :)"“It was amazing,” I say. “It was unicorns vomiting sunbeams.”"
    • 4/5
      This was so beautiful I can't even!

      I honestly didn't connect that much with Leah in the first book and to be frank she seemed like a dick, but then I read this book. And HOLY CRAP I LOVE LEAH!

      I LOVED being in her head and reading her thoughts, I think Becky did really well in portraying Leah's anxiety and how she keeps overthinking stuff. I related to her in so many ways it hurts.

      I was so happy to see my babies from [b:Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda|19547856|Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (Creekwood, #1)|Becky Albertalli|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1402915678s/19547856.jpg|27679579] playing a big part in this book. I was literally grinning like an idiot whenever Simon and Bram made an appearance (They're so precious bloody hell!)

      I really enjoyed this book, it was so light and fun to go through! I hope there would be more books in the Simonverse bc I can't seem to have enough!

      Oh and one more thing:
      Dear Garette, just in case you don't find the perfect someone for you

      He's so cute and funny and adorable I just can't take it!