Teenage Lexicon

SPOILER ALERT! I went into this book absolutely engrossed in the Simonverse. After finishing Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, I just kind of sat there, staring at the last page, kind of in awe. I had read books with characters just as developed and complicated as Albertalli’s Creekwood teens, but somehow, these characters seemed different. More real . They were people I knew, not people I’d seen on some movie or read in another YA book.  So I was just a tiny bit nervous to read Leah on the Offbeat because I didn’t want to jeopardize this wonder. But I read it anyway, and I’m so, so glad I did. Leah on the Offbeat is in the point of view of Leah Burke, one of Simon’s best friends from Simon. But in Simon , the reader never finds out that Leah is a closeted bisexual. Her identity becomes a point of contention in the spin-off.  But it isn’t the entire book. Leah is not defined by her sexuality. It’s a big part of her, and it’s a big part of the plot, but that’s...

November has just drawn to a close, and lots of brave, successful writers have taken the beginning of December as the time to share their projects started or completed through NaNoWriMo.  But why, do you ask, am I not one of them? 2017 was my first, and last, year participating in NaNoWriMo. In theory, it seemed like a great idea. I had only a few chapters of Knowers Book Two completed, and I wanted to get more of it done. It seemed like a good way to get in touch with other authors and advance my skills. I signed up for it on November 3rd because I kind of forgot November was a thing until then. It took about three more days for it to become the bane of my existence. I was a junior in high school in November 2017. For those of you who have completed junior year, you know that this wasn’t the time to try to write 50,000 words of a novel. I was also in a musical that opened second weekend of November, editor of my school’s literary magazine, and taking three AP clas...