Before I begin, is it just me, or did Leah gain weight since the first book, and I didn't notice? Like, maybe I missed it in Simon's book, but I had no idea she was a plus-size character. I love the body representation; I just must not have noticed that in her character description cause when I was reading this book, I was a bit thrown off by her being a bigger girl. But she owns it, and I love that.
Anyway, that aside, I loved this book. I love a good sapphic romance. Also, I love the bi representation. We need more of that in media, I think.
Leah did come off a bit too teen antsy for me, but that's her character, so Albertalli nailed that. I would have liked to see her do a bit of the nerdy stuff she's always telling us about than just, well, telling us she's into nerdy things. My inner nerd needs it. But still, I enjoyed reading her much more than Molly in book two. She felt more fleshed out as a character.
One nitpick I will say, however, is that Leah telling Abby she can't be a little bi and that she has to label herself properly irked me. It's Abby's choice on how she wants to be labelled. If Abby is only 5% into girls and 95% into guys, she's still bi. No one should tell you how you identify.
That being said, this was a cute read and a worthy sequel to Love, Simon. It was nice to see the OG cast again, and fun to read little cameo's to characters in the second book. This book was a much better fit for the Simonverse than book two. (Which, it being a sequel and featuring the main cast again, wasn't hard to do).
