God, I love Leah. She’s such a tragic bisexual who constantly gets in her own way and her happy ending is just the most important thing in the world to me. And I would never have expected that ending when I started this book, which is just all the better.

This book does encounter the same issues I’m having with a lot of YA like this, because I do think the constant pop culture references date the story in a way that I don’t like. But I still feel like there’s a difference between this and The Hate U Give, and I think it’s that LOTO relies on the reader knowing and understanding all the references ahead of time (Drarry, etc.) whereas THUG laboriously over-explains. And maybe that’s just my preference, because I do understand the references.

In any case, I’m going to miss the Creekwood gang a whole lot. I feel very close to them and their high school experience feels very real and beautiful to me.