The sequel to Love From Lexie, and I haven't cringed so much since Cherry Crush.

SAMI

Sami is our main character, a fifteen year old Syrian refugee who lost his family on the journey to England. I liked this backstory, and the sections of Sami remembering this journey, and the grief of his father's death, were honestly quite touching. He finds out that his mother and sister are still alive, which was nice, and their reunion was sweet. I just didn't really understand why Lexie came along for the ride, like she's his girlfriend, sure, but she's known him for a very short time, just didn't really feel appropriate to have her there, but whatever ig.

Otherwise, he's a dull character. He refuses to take off this tattered overcoat because it belonged to his father, and later starts sewing bird feathers and bits of coke cans to it. Everyone thinks this is so cool, too. I just have to take a moment to wonder how the fuck you sew bits of tin to a coat. He's so good at art that he gets his own gallery display uwu.

Sami ends up with Lexi, our thirteen year old from the first book. She's still as interesting as ever, i.e not at all. Then we get this deep sentence, I understood then why I felt so drawn to Lexie, why out of all the girls I'd met since coming to Britain, she was the one I'd fallen for. Lexie Lawlor was damaged, just like me.

MARLEY BEING GAY

Hey guys, remember Marley from the first book? Remember how Lexie was into him but it turned out he was gay?

Well, in this book Lexie basically forcibly outs him to all their friends, Marley manipulates another girl's feelings for him, and the gay thing means nothing.

So there's this girl with the horrific name of Bobbi-Jo, who wants to join their band, mostaly just because she's into Marley. She joins as keyboard player, and is fucking terrible but Marley takes her on, just because her dad is a famous music producer who can help them get big. Marley purposefully doesn't tell her he's gay and strings her along just so she can give him what he wants. Wow, great morals right there.

Here is Marley's coming out scene, a scene so sugary sweet and ridiculous that it's actually just kind of insulting.

"Tell them," Lexie says quietly. "You keep saying you're waiting for the right moment. Just do it, Marley."

What a good friend, outing her friend like that. So then we have some "tell us what" "what are you talking about" etc etc, then this piece of art.

"There's something I need to tell you all, and I need you to listen, and not judge. There's no easy way to say this. You know I'm an idiot. You know I'm shallow, ambitious, a bit of a slave driver. This is scary. I won't be going out with Bobbi-Jo, not now, not ever. I'm tired of pretending to be something - someone - I'm not."

This rambling bullshit goes on for way too long, until he finally gets to the point, and then his friends are just....uck.

"This doesn't change anything," Jake says, nudging Marley playfully.

"No it doesn't," Bex agrees. "You're still an idiot!"

"But you're our idiot," I quip.

Just so cliche and shitty. I want a proper gay character, is that so much to ask? Marley may as well be straight for the 5 seconds of attention his sexuality gets.

The Style Of Writing

So sickingly aesthetic, what with their hipster cafe and their lemonade and hot chocolate. Everyone constantly talks in exclamation marks. Like all the fucking time.

In Syria, Sami used to sit on the roof of his house with his dad and look at the stars. His parents used to even sleep up there. I mean.....okay.

The Band

They're still ridiculously amazing and talented and brilliant. They do loads of street performances after Bobbi-Jo fucks them over, and the video goes viral, because of course. They don't practice in a library anymore, but in what I think is an abandoned train carriage? They write a new song about refugees, and I just have to share part of it with yall because it's so clumsy.

Crashing arms summon me
As the wind cries overhead
I look into your eyes
Taste those salty lips
I hold out my hand
And lean my back into the wind
Will you catch me if I fall?
Will you have me at all?
At all.....

Dude what.

They have this rival band called Pretty Street, headed by this guy named, and wait for this, you're gonna fucking love it - T-Dawg.

This book was hard to get through. I would give it - something out of 5 but tbh who cares about these ratingssss.