zainab soofi

wow... this book. it gets the star because it was funny on occasion, but honestly it threw me off because of leah's personality. she's incredibly HUMAN, and its a fascinating character to go into, but it's not enjoyable to read if the character doesn't change, and doesn't even try to. what ESPECIALLY threw me off is abby coming out to her, and explaining it as "lowkey-bi" and instead of consoling her and at least giving her time to figure it out since she just started experimenting with her sexuality, she berates her and says that you're either "bi or not". i'm bi myself, and found myself in abby's position, and i'm sure leah has too, so the lack of sympathy because abby is 'playing with her' is just annoying. don't berate morgan for saying a racist comment when you yourself are doing something very harmful as well, leah! the hypocrisy is frustrating. that isn't human or frustration, that's just mean. it's not something you'd want to read about when there's hardly any arch to make up for it. leah is constantly feeling guilty and bad, but lacks any ability to do something about it, which gives the story a weird standstill plot. everything is (sort of) moving forward but the conflict doesn't actually do anything to push the characters emotions in any direction. it feels like a constant cycle of conflict, freeze up and do nothing, feel guilty, repeat. the book is overall very inconclusive. having openly LGBT+ characters is good, and putting those characters through common LGBT+ struggles is fantastic, but it doesn't make it a good book, and take it from me that this was extremely painful to read.