3.5 stars.

Another fun teen read by Ms Abertalli. I really enjoyed the Simon v Homo Sapiens Agenda book and half of my anticipation was seeing he and [insert other gay love character for those who didn’t read the first book] be mushy and cute together. But the other half of me wanted to see more of Leah.

I don’t know, I felt like this book didn’t have a clear plot or goal in mind. Whereas in book one, there’s this hanging question over Simons head about the mystery man behind the emails, Leah has a myriad of problems. Her mother’s new relationship, her lack of confidence and overall crushing insecurity in herself, her closeted bi status amongst her group of friends, closing the chapter of high school and choosing colleges, and her forbidden crush on a girl. A girl who by the end of the book, I was still not convinced should have been Leahs true partner. But I’m getting ahead of myself

Which isn’t a bad thing by the way. But I mean, it was a lot. And it was still written in that typical teen way Abertalli writes, so it felt more like an episode of Degrassi where you just cut to different snippets of Leahs life that she doesn’t know how to solve. But miraculously in the span of two weeks all of these little conflicts are resolved neatly. And that’s what kind of bothered me. She gains the confidence to commission her art, she publicly kisses her dream girl, which solidifies her “outed” status as bi, she bonds with her moms new beau while shopping for only ten minutes, and she and her friends come up with a plan to continue to keep their “squad” despite them all going to different colleges. I mean. Don’t get me wrong I love all the happy endings. I love each and every character. But part of me wondered if they deserved it? If this was just written as neatly and perfectly packaged as it was to appease us fans?


Regardless of how much I love these characters, none of them are really motivated to change or develop. Or if characters do go through character development (those aside from Leah of) it’s because Abertalli is setting it up for Leah to be able to grow. Which makes said characters shifts seem more confusing plot threads than actual growth. One particular character , who was near and dear to Leah in the first book, suddenly goes through these swings and changes which coincidently help Leah get the girl she wants. It just felt too good to be true of a plot. I wish there’d been some more pressure, more work on Leahs part to grow into herself.

And then although this may seem like a pet peeve I really didn’t like the college situation involving Abby and another one of Leahs friends. I think that side plot was not well handled. I applaud Abertalli for bringing racial bias to light especially when it comes to how white liberals can be just as racist, but there was a bit of ...privilege in that we only understand it through Leahs hurt and distraught ness. Leah, who’s more hurt about what her friend did to Abby than Abby herself it seems. And what could’ve been an interesting conversation just becomes “I can’t even believe you said something so racist. That was racist, I can’t. Racist racist....” you get the point. Anytime said “racist” friend tries to discuss the incident, Leah shuts down the conversations by calling her racist. Which yes, what was said was racist. But calling someone who knows they made a mistake racist doesn’t progress things, it just encourages those people to be more secretive about making said racist comments. Which Abby put perfectly to words in her convo with Leah. I just thought that 1. That situation shouldn’t have been blown to proportion by someone who wasn’t even victim to that and 2. It made me wonder if Leah would have been as righteous if her personal feelings weren’t in the mix. But for Leah, everything is personal.


Lastly, my only gripe with this sequel is, even though it tries it doesn’t really bring her softer side to the forefront. Like the first book, she can be very emotional but express it in a very toxic unhealthy way. And we get to see the backstory of why that is, and all her true insecurities with herself but she doesn’t really make an effort to change that about herself. She acknowledges it which is a big step, but the way her love interest entered into the picture made it feel as if the author wanted to convince us that said love interest brings out this nicer side of Leah. Which I’m sorry but, love is cute and all, but love doesn’t change your character, and doesn’t make a toxic person nontoxic. When she would snipe at her love interest, I felt how the love interest felt and I think the fact that by the end of the book said love interest still doesn’t know Leahs past or that much about her to understand why she is the way she is is saddening because it doesn’t make their love seem like a forever and ever thing . Just a ‘now and when you don’t have tantrums’ thing.

I don’t know. This review turned out to be longer than I expected. Despite my issues with the book, I still give it 4 stars (moreso 3.5) because it’s a well written book and it made me finish it in two days. I’ll have to go ahead and put my brain to sleep from how I binged through this. It’s a GREAT book. But do I think it’s as good as it’s predecessor ? No. Do I think it could stand on its own without the 1st book fangirl feels? (Unfortunately) Probably not.