I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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.

Short and Sweet Review

It’s senior year and in the short amount of time before graduation Leah is trying to figure things out. She’s bi but the only person who knows is her mom, she’s an amazing artist but she’s not comfortable showing her drawings, and her solid friend group seems to be fracturing.

Alrighty this book was rough for me to read. I loved Simon in his book so I thought I would love his best friend Leah in her own book, but I was wrong. I think the thing that really threw me was how cynical and pessimistic Leah was. She would say unnecessarily mean things to people and I just hated it, because the people she would talk to that way didn’t deserve it. Leah has a love interest in this book who is apart of the friend group and it was like hot and cold. Sometimes Leah would get along with this person and at other times she would lash out at them. I like that we got to see Simon and caught up on things going on in his life. Not much happened I feel like it was Leah going to school, talking about college, and going to prom. There could have been so much more character development with Leah but it just wasn’t there in the end.

I wanted to love this book but unfortunately it just fell flat for me.

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he's pushed out—without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he's never met.

Short and Sweet Review

Simon isn’t out yet but he finds happiness sending emails back and forth with someone from school who is calling themselves Blue. But when a classmate, Martin, sees those emails he decides to blackmail Simon into becoming his wingman. Now Simon has to navigate being blackmailed and making sure his secret isn’t out before he’s ready.

Simon is obviously our main character, and he lives a pretty normal life, he’s in the school musical, has a good group of friends, but no one knows that he’s gay. Simon finds comfort emailing Blue someone who also isn’t out yet. Here’s where things get a little messy, after using the school computer Simon forgets to log out and his classmate Martin sees the emails between him and Blue and decides to use that against Simon. Now Simon has to try to help Martin get with his friend Abby. I thought Martin was the worst character and I was furious about what he did. Although Simon was put in a tough situation he tried to make decisions that he thought were right which in the end he learned weren’t. I really liked Simon’s friends and how supportive they were, I especially liked the emails between Simon and Blue! Simon learns to be comfortable with who he is and eventually meets Blue!

I thought this was a really cute book, it was a fast read and had an important message. I did cry a few times but I also laughed! Definitely read this book, the movie isn’t bad either!