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.

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli
Series: Simonverse #2
Published by Balzer + Bray on 4/11/17
Genres: Contemporary, LGBT, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 368
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love. No matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.

Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly's totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie's new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. If Molly can win him over, she'll get her first kiss and she'll get her twin back.

There's only one problem: Molly's coworker, Reid. He's a chubby Tolkien superfan with a season pass to the Ren Faire, and there's absolutely no way Molly could fall for him.

Right?

Short and Sweet Review

Molly has had a lot of crushes in her life but she’s never been rejected because she hasn’t pursued any of her crushes. Molly and her twin sister Cassie are super close until Cassie gets a girlfriend. Cassie and her girlfriend Mina try to get Molly and Mina’s friend Will to date, but Molly has conflicting feelings especially because all she can think about is her coworker Reid.

Yikes is all I can say. This is the second Becky Albertalli book I’ve read where I’ve been annoyed by the characters, I think this book actually gave me a headache. Molly has had a lot of crushes in her life I think she’s on number 26 or something but she usually keeps her feelings to herself. Anyway Molly’s sister gets a girlfriend and I don’t know if Molly felt left out but she was basically third wheeling and Cassies remedy to this was for Molly to get with Mina’s friend Will. The problem here is that Molly thinks Will is cute but she actually has feelings for her coworker Reid. The even bigger problem here is that Cassie keeps pushing Will on Molly and Molly doesn’t speak up. So basically Cassie thinks Molly is being selfish and ruining things on purpose but Molly DOESN’T LIKE WILL! Any feelings Molly does think she has for Will come because she’s basically talking herself into it like yeah it’s possible we could be together, she’d be settling. Anyway there was one scene where Molly goes off on Cassie and I’m like “yeah you go girl tell her how you really feel,” but then Molly backs down and I was just disappointed. The little three way crush was too much for me the back and forth I had enough of it. I’m sure Reid and Molly’s romance would have been even better if we didn’t have to go through all the nonsense that came before it. Also I was tired of Molly’s girl group Cassie especially. I did like Abby though even though she was miles away she was a better cousin/friend to Molly than any of the girls who were actually with Molly instate.

Overall just writing this review and thinking about the things that happened are giving me a headache. There are better Becky Albertalli books unfortunately this is one that fell short.

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.

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli
Series: Simonverse #3
Published by Balzer + Bray on 4/24/18
Genres: Contemporary, LGBT, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 368
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

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.

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
Series: Simonverse #1
Published by Balzer + Bray on 4/7/15
Genres: Contemporary, LGBT, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 320
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

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!