I've read the novel in the summer holidays in just a few days. It had caught my attention immediately because of the topic of her being bisexual. There are not many stories about lesbians and even less about bi girls.

We are introduced into the story nicely and it was easy to understand the connections between the characters even though I haven't read Simon's story (I've only seen the movie).

I liked that there were even more characters who didn't appear in the previous book/movie (such as Morgan for example). Also I liked that the author picked up hints from the first book and re-used them for the plot of the second book (although I know this wasn't planned).

The writing style is easy but not too simple. It is a teenager language, but reflects Leah's mood perfectly. I could recognize the author's writing style easily and that shows that she knows what she's doing and has some experience. It was no problem to understand with my English knowledge.

What bothered me a bit was Leah's passiveness. Often, she was confronted with a behaviour of hers and she just didn't answer because she "didn't know what to say". Or she didn't answer Garrets texts because "she didn't know what to say". That was really annoying because often, the other person was taken aback then, even though Leah didn't mean to hurt them. But if she had just opened her mouth a bit more often, she could have avoided a lot of pain! And then, Leah didn't even notice that her behaviour was hurtful to others. Also, she just ran out of situations that she didn't like and even though that's "her character", it was a bit unrealistic. People normally don't do this.

But apart from that, I liked Leah and of course Simon was amazing. I think the author made a great job for a sequel, now describing Simon from the outside. Also I LOVED the diversity of the book. There were people of colour, overweight people, people of different sexualities and much more. But it wasn't like "look, this person is black and you have to accept her!" but it was more that the different people were integrated into the story, and because she (the author) didn't put too much emphasize on it, it shows even more tolerance. Of course she brought the issues of the different aspects, but she did it in a subtle way and therefore teaches the reader tolerance. I love this!

So despite the partly annoying traits of Leah, I really enjoyed the book and hugely recommend it!

5 stars!