Leah Burke—girl-band drummer, master of deadpan, and Simon Spier’s best friend from the award-winning Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda—takes center stage in this novel of first love and senior-year angst.

When it comes to drumming, Leah Burke is usually on beat—but real life isn’t always so rhythmic. An anomaly in her friend group, she’s 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.

I love Leah. I fucking love Leah Burke. That would be simply enough to describe how I feel about this book. I loved her sassy ass from Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and was really excited to have a book about her, but I had no idea I was going to love it so much. I loved every single thing she did, said or thought. Reading her pov made me really happy; she is so badass, sarcastic, confident yet inside insecure and nerdy (Harry Potter references gave me life). She is comfortable with her body and does not want to change it, she fights for what she thinks is right and has the absolutely perfect amount of badass queen and cinnamon roll.


The best thing about her is that she is so damn hilarious. I adored humor in both Creekwood books, but Leah’s sarcastic comments made me laugh every single time. I just kept reading and loving her more and more and I’d end up reading something and thinking “Damn if this isn’t the most accurate thing ever”. I think she may be one of the best female characters I’ve seen in YA literature.


Her crush on Abby was actually the cutest thing ever. That’s, in fact, another cool thing about her character: she is badass and cold, but when it comes to Abby, she can’t really think straight. Her fighting with that all-consuming, burning crush was one of the best-described things in this book, I mean if anything is real, it’s how it feels when you have a crush on someone, but can do nothing about it. Dynamics of their relationship developed alongside their friendship and the rest of the group. I fell in love with their group of friends all over again, let’s be real, they are goals. I had such a good time reading about their interactions, Simon and Bram especially since this is kind of an epilogue to their story.

There was just a perfect amount of romance, high school life, friendship and drama in this book. Easy paced, but yet with a lot of casual happenings that make this book interesting and fun to read. While the development of Abby and Leah’s relationship was predictable and the jealous-ex-partner-problem is kinda cliché, I found myself enjoying every bit of it more than I thought I would.

10/10 would recommend even if you haven’t read Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda.