Center for Teaching & Learning

Creekwood is a wealthy town, and for most people it's the perfect place for their perfect family—not for Leah. Her mother is struggling with work, and Leah’s not sure about her mom's new boyfriend, Wells. Plus, it’s senior year, and things are changing: everyone is looking at colleges that are way out of Leah's price range, and her feelings for her long-time classmate Abby are becoming something more than friendship. As the school year goes on, more starts to happen. Abby breaks up with her boyfriend (which makes Leah surprisingly happy), and Leah gets a boyfriend, Garrett (who she decides to ignore). She can’t help feeling that her world is changing. Leah has to survive the ups and downs of senior year. Will she make it?

 In Leah on the Offbeat, Becky Albertalli develops Leah and her supporting characters to be lifelike. Most of the situations Leah is put in happen to many kids, and it is cool to see a book that has so many connections to the real world. Readers will want to dive right into Creekwood High School’s drama and gossip, and they will immediately fall in love with Leah's quirky personality. They will also enjoy Albertalli’s way of making the characters’ dialogue super realistic. I felt like I was inside of the book listening to the characters talk to one another.  

The novel is written in first person, which gives readers a sense of what Leah is thinking all the time. It is crucial that Albertalli did this because, without Leah’s thoughts and feelings, the book would be bland, and readers would find themselves wondering what is going on in Leah's head. 

I found that the pace of Leah on the Offbeat was fast, but it had some parts that were slow on purpose, so the moments they described were more special. At some points in the end there were a couple of suspenseful moments where readers will not be able to put the book down.

One choice of Albertalli’s that was effective was how she made the antagonist Leah herself. Leah is self-conscious about her body and is nervous about telling people that she is bisexua, even her best friends, and I think that readers will gain knowledge about how some kids are not comfortable coming out to their families. Leah on the Offbeat clearly shows how hard it can be for kids to tell the people that they love one of the most important things to them. Leah’s rose as the antagonist of her own story will show readers that it is hard to tell people how you feel. 

Leah on the Offbeat was definitely a ten out of ten read for me. With all these effective features, how could it not be? Albertalli has written other amazing books that readers will enjoy: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is the first book in this series. It focuses on Leah's friend, Simon, and it's a great book. Albertalli also wrote What if it's Us, a wonderful book about a summer romance. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes contemporary realistic fiction and to someone who is looking for a heartwarming romance novel that will make readers fall in love with Leah's story. 

Kestrel

Balzer + Bray, 339 pages