This review contains spoilers.
I tried so hard to like this book. I wanted to like it so bad. But I didn't, and I had to force myself to finish the book.
In my experience, the main character Leo is difficult to like. His entire personality is that he wants a boyfriend, and it doesn't even matter who. He's in love with love and that's all there really is to him, aside from his scrapbooking hobby that he uses to document and facilitate the whole in love with love thing. While the title of the book is "Leo Martino Steals Back His Heart," that only happens in the final ten or fifteen percent of the book, and almost the entirety of it is him changing every single aspect about himself to become more desirable. In the end, he has this sudden realization that none of this is worth it if the person doesn't love the true him, and this realization feels abrupt, especially considering how he was totally enamoured with his love interest until like two pages ago.
But also, this sudden realization is the exact same thing his best friend said right at the beginning. Leo spent the entire novel setting aside his friends for the sake of his mission, judging them, or expecting them to always be there for him whenever it was convenient for him despite hardly being there for them. The way he treats them is unfair, and although he continuously says he'll do better, he keeps failing them.
I'm someone who reads stories for the characters, and this book just didn't deliver. The only truly likable character was Dillon, in my opinion, and even he had me questioning that near the end because of his unfair actions near the end. But also, just like everyone else in this book, Leo used him as a means to an end for a lot of the story.
Another thing that bothers me is that the story also focuses on his faulty relationship with his dad, yet the "closure" we get is surface level without any sort of actual progress. Leo decides to accept himself for who he is, and along with that he decides to accept them for who they are. It's framed like him getting closure but it feels like he's excusing the actions of those who hurt him and enabling them to keep doing it. That doesn't sit well with me, especially when this was the secondary focus of the whole book.
This is supposed to be a journey of self-discovery, but Leo is constantly shoving every piece of himself down, sometimes reluctantly and other times he's glad to do it. It isn't until all the way at the end that Leo suddenly decides he's okay as he is and reverts everything all at once. The realization was abrupt and didn't feel worked up to in the way it should have been for a smoother story. Every single thing was reverted in a matter of pages and it felt like I wasted my time reading a story where almost nothing has lastingly changed.
I am just not the target audience for this story. There are probably plenty of people who love it, but I am not one of them. The main character is not likable, a lot of the other characters aren't likable either, and the downward spiral of the plot goes on far too long before taking an upturn into the actual point of the story (Leo learning to love himself).

Okay, so Leo Martino Steals Back His Heart by Eric Geron… I gave it 2 stars, but honestly, I think that’s more of a me thing than the book’s fault. Like, it’s not bad—there’s charm, there’s wit, there’s plenty of rom-com energy—but I’ve just come to the conclusion that romance as the main event doesn’t really do it for me. I need a little more plot-meat to chew on, something twisty or high-stakes that makes me forget what time it is and keeps me flipping pages at 2am.

That said, Leo as a character was fun, and the whole revenge-love-heist premise had potential. I think if romance is your thing, you’d probably have a way better time with it. But for me, once I clocked the direction the story was going, I just kinda… coasted. No real urgency to find out what happened next, you know?

So yeah, not mad I read it, but also not racing to read another like it. 2 out of 5 stars, but with the very clear caveat that I’m just not the target audience.

Oh goodness this one was a little challenging for me. As much as I like an unlikable narrator, it's hard for me to have any sympathy for white cis gay men right now and I just struggled. I think the second half of this book is better than the first and genuinely feel like if the first half of the book had been the first quarter and then that energy was spent giving us more in that last quarter of the book I would have liked it a lot more. I needed less time of Leo being really self hating and pushing his friends away and more time of him accepting himself as he truly is and discovering what a romance can look like for him. I think Lincoln is given entirely too much page time on this book. Varsha and Dillon are not given enough.

That being said, I do appreciate when a book is able to incorporate multiple storylines and I like seeing some of that family dynamic as well. I do think it could have been explored more and better but it was a good element to give us some insight into why Leo is the way he is.

I also love when we have secondary aromantic characters. I think it's really important for obviously books to get aromantic main characters but for also a romantic characters to be secondary characters and be part of these queer friend groups. A lot of queer people have no idea about aromanticism and/or asexuality and so having some secondary characters who use the label on page and talk about it is really important for representation. People might not pick up a book if they know it has an aromantic main character but they will pick up a book if it has a gay main character and they don't know at the time it has an aro secondary character.

Overall, this one was mid for me. Not one I'd read again but I think it definitely has its audience, I just wasn't it.

A predictable, if sort of underdeveloped, YA rom com. I love this cutesy cover, so I was hoping to love this, but I thought the relationship with the boy he ends up with was underdeveloped, and I thought that his relationship with his brother and dad kept bubbling to the service but was never fully dealt with in a meaningful way. Overall, this was okay but didn't live up to my hopes.

This was such a cute and fun read. I was in the mood for something lighthearted and “Leo Martino Steals Back His Heart” fit. I haven’t read YA in a long time, and this was a perfect “get back into the mood” book. It was a fast read but still packed the emotional punch I love (and we expect) in the YA genre. There are some sad/maddening moments, so it’s not all fun and games, but it is an overall net positive book. The ups and downs through changes is fun to read and I can imagine this would make a cute streaming movie. I might have to look into the audiobook as some reviews have mentioned it’s great.

Thank you to #NetGalley for a review copy of #LeoMartinoStealsBackHisHeart. All feedback is my unbiased opinion, not paid, and simply for the love of books.

I had a difficult time connecting with this one. The concept is cute and fun, but I don't think it necessarily landed very well. I felt very little chemistry between anyone and the love interest, though predictable with the formula of these things, felt shoehorned in. The pacing was also not my favorite and the last third of the book felt like it rushed through many critical moments in favor of drawing out a too long build up in the first bit of the book.

Overall, I didn't hate this and I'm sure some people will love it, but it just wasn't for me.

Leo Martino is a high school senior who’s desperate to attract his first real boyfriend. He’s had fleeting crushes on boys who seemed to like him–temporarily–but never stuck around for long. Leo’s the kind of guy who wants to shower his love on people, and he gives his heart away too easily. His first, and worst, crush was on Lincoln Chan, one of the most popular boys in their school. Back in middle school, though, Leo and Lincoln were super close friends, playing borderline nerdy card games and loving the same anthropomorphic animal adventures. Then, they shared one kiss, and Leo was blocked everywhere on Lincoln’s socials.

Meanwhile, Leo’s also hiding a pretty big secret from his besties, Dillon and Varsha. Leo’s narcissistic, emotionally abusive father has left his loving and supportive mother for his barely legal secretary. And his mom’s devolved into a sobbing drunk, while weathering their nasty divorce.

Together with his devoted besties, Leo’s going to scrapbook his way through a Boyfriend Material Checklist. By checking in with all the guys who dissed him, Leo’s hoping to figure out what he did to turn them off hanging out with him. From there, he’s going to transform himself to try and make his way into more prestigious cliques and find a boy who is willing to be his boyfriend.

I wasn’t as thrilled with this story as I wanted to be. First off, I was expecting more of a rom-com and this wasn’t one. Leo felt so adrift and hungry for love that I really empathized with him. As such, it was even harder feeling his pain over his disintegrating family, as well as his callous treatment by selfish, materialistic, clout-chasing dudes of his acquaintance. His deep-dive into figuring out why he’s “so unlovable” felt more self-destructive than self-affirming. Leo was a genuinely nice, decent guy, and all his forays into “transformation” led to him becoming increasingly less so. He hurt Dillon and Varsha over and over, and he still didn’t feel like he was really doing anything wrong, because he was just trying to get a boyfriend.

Mostly, I had trouble with the pacing. So much page time was devoted to Leo tracking down guy after guy, figuring out how to change himself, how to up his social cred. His descent into refashioning himself into a troubling individual felt unending. This was only magnified by Leo’s continued feelings of inadequacy about himself and the guy he was mainly pursuing. That guy wasn’t nice, at all, and Leo squashed the red flag alerts he kept witnessing all in pursuit of the Boyfriend goal. He kept his friends on the outside, and he hardly spoke to his real and valid anger about his father’s abuse and neglect. At times, it felt like I was watching Leo turn himself into a doormat and develop an unhealthy relationship akin to the one his parents were currently dissolving.

It was most of the way through the book before Leo got a real clue about what a jerk he was turning into, and for what? Having a bad boyfriend isn’t really an improvement over having no boyfriend. He risked all of his relationships in this single-minded pursuit and, once he did figure it out, there was almost no page time left for his redemptive arc. Leo does do the right things, eventually, and he does achieve his goal of a loving boyfriend. It’s practically the epilogue by then, however, and I was less invested at that point.

In all, this is an interesting queer YA novel, which had a lot of promise. However, there were a lot of troubling overtones, some of which had to be resolved unsatisfactorily quickly to make the story end in a reasonable page count. I wanted time to cheer Leo on in his pursuit of the good guy, to wallow in watching him embrace his bedazzled quirkiness and scrapbooked love. With such a brief denouement, I was left with a saddened heart and less joy than I had at the outset. I wished Leo could have spent more time working on loving himself, as a model for his audience, as he was enough as-is to be Boyfriend Material all along.

Thank you to HarperCollins for my review copy. My opinions are my own

Leo Martino may love love, but he’s a try hard, a mess, invisible, not a good kisser, and too clingy for his ex-crushes. So he tries to reinvent himself, with some disastrous results.

I enjoyed aspects of the story, but cringed hard at others. Leo is going through some things and I know that plays a part, Leo is supposed to be 17, but reads younger. The side characters (not the crushes) of Dillon and Varsha and their friendship with Leo was the best part of the story. This is a lighthearted story of a teen trying to become someone he’s not, and getting lost for a while. When you let everyone else define you, who are you? This is also a very YA level book, there’s kissing and that is it.

Read if you like these kind of tropes:
- make overs
- checklists
- faking it to make it
- normalized queerness
- scrapbooking
- Mean Girls vibes

Other stories with similar vibes: Jay’s Gay Agenda, My Fair Brady, and Mismatched.

Okay so I have many thoughts about this book but before I get to them, a special thanks to NetGalley and publishing for giving me the opportunity to read this book!
Alright first: I love the cover! Its really cute and gives the readers a good sense that its a book about high school!
Moving on to the review:
I really enjoyed reading this, although at some points you kinda wanna grab the main character and shake him or knock some sense into him (in a gentle and kind way!) Leo is really trying to find himself, for him high school has to have a monumental experience, so he feels he has to change who he is to fully experience love etc.
I like the other characters personalities especially his friends’. The love interests truly scream what a teen would find interesting but for the most part his love interests were total meanies to Leo and were only interested in him after he changed :(
His home life is rough too on top of dealing with college applications, and working a part time job.
Overall 3/5 stars ⭐️

So this was another fun contemporary romance with some family issues in the background, although not quite as much a part of the story as the last similar book I read. It’s kind of sad to say that I understood Leo’s problem of mistaking niceness for someone being interested. And usually thinking when someone was interested I just thought they were being nice, not to mention how I developed crushes that never worked out. Afraid to say that has happened even at my age still!

There were actually similarities in this book and the last one I read because once again the main character is trying to become the best partner he can. Only as his list is created from his exes telling him what they didn’t like about him, I can see the ways he puts into motion what they say taking so many bad turns. Not to mention how much it sucks to see him let the things they say cause him to change himself. But again, he’s a teen, so definitely makes sense. It also was so hard to read as he said and did things that were so wrong to the wonderful friends he had. Even knowing he was just trying to follow his plan. It took a few times, but he did realize what he was doing at the end and try to stop himself.

And it made me so mad how much he let his big crush that turned into his first boyfriend be such a dick to him. Yeah, I know people have problems with that, and it’s understandable with how his romantic life or lack of one had been so far at his age. Everyone else kind of noticed or knew who Leo was missing that would be his perfect boyfriend. Almost that person themselves didn’t quite maybe see it or understand at first from the way we get his story. Leo had such great friends though, especially in how they handled him through this without letting him completely run them over and ignore them. But not giving up on him either.

The family aspect of this story was sadder than with the other book I just read. I hated Leo’s dad so much. And honestly I’m still not sure how much I like his brother. In the end I like the way things worked out, how his mother realized she needed to work on some things too. And I loved his whole scrapbooking hobby/lifestyle. I remember making a scrapbook for my sorority memories when I was in college. We even got a little scrapbook type thing when I graduated from high school that we could order from Jostens. I still have both of those. I also made a scrapbook for my dinosaur dig trip after college. These days I enjoy making them on sites like Shutterfly, even though I can’t help but go in afterwards and add in things, like the ones I made for the Book Bonanza conventions.

A fun romance, another one I’ll be sure to have for my students to enjoy!

Leo Martino Steals Back His Heart is a heartfelt and relatable coming-of-age story that will resonate with many readers, particularly those navigating the complexities of love and self-acceptance in their teenage years. Leo Anthony Martino is a lovable, earnest character who is desperately searching for love, only to be met with disappointment after each failed crush. By the time senior year rolls around, Leo feels like he’s unlovable and that his chances of finding a meaningful relationship are slim.

What makes this book stand out is Leo’s vulnerability and the growth he undergoes. He creates a checklist of things to change about himself to become "boyfriend material" for his newest crush, but in doing so, he loses sight of the important truth: he doesn’t need to change for anyone. His journey is not just about finding love, but about learning to love himself and recognizing the value of the relationships he already has with friends and family.

The theme of self-acceptance is skillfully woven throughout the narrative. Leo’s realization that he is worthy of love exactly as he is provides a powerful message for readers. There’s also a deeper exploration of how friendship can offer support in times of heartbreak, and how genuine connections are built on authenticity rather than trying to fit into someone else’s idea of who you should be.

The pacing is solid, with a good balance between humorous moments and emotional depth. While some may find Leo’s initial attempts to change himself a little frustrating (as he goes a bit overboard with his list), his growth and eventual realization feel earned and satisfying.

Overall, Leo Martino Steals Back His Heart is a delightful and thoughtful story that emphasizes the importance of being true to oneself and the power of personal growth. It’s an engaging read for anyone who’s ever felt the pressure to change to fit someone else’s idea of what they should be. With lovable characters and a meaningful message, this book is a wonderful addition to the coming-of-age genre.

Leo Martino is a sweet likable guy who keeps making the same mistakes. I like him, but he also drives me crazy for this. One of the problems with a first person YA narrator is it runs the risk of the supporting characters becoming underdeveloped, because you only hear things and see things through Leo. I think you get that a little here. I want more fleshing out of his friends, and of why his brother is feeling and behaving the way he is.

That said, I think there's a lot of good message here about discovering who you are in high school, And the writing is a breeze, easy and fun to read. Definitely recommend.

Thank you to HarperCollins Children’s Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review! LMSBHH is Heartstopper meets Disney Channel, and hits all the right sweet spots!

Fresh off another failed crush, Leo Martino is about ready to give up on love. With his trusty friends Dillon and Varsha bolstering him up, he finds another love-worthy attention grabber in the charming Lincoln Chan. But this time he wants it to be different, and thus he decides to focus on making himself exactly who Lincoln would want him to be. But if Leo can’t really love himself as is, can he ever really expect someone else to?

A clean, wholesome love story, which stands as both a tribute to friendship and to the importance of being yourself, Leo Martino Steals Back His Heart is a fun, colorful read. I think it was a little too young for me, but that doesn’t mean I’m not happy for younger queer kids to enjoy this one and find something warm and welcoming to remind them they are perfect just the way they are. Adults need the reminder sometimes too; we’re just kids all grown up.

I did not personally connect to the MC in this novel. I think that is what made the story not work for me as a whole.

Eric Geron’s Leo Martino Steals Back His Heart is a delightful, heartwarming journey of self-discovery, love, and healing. With humor and emotional depth, Geron crafts a story about taking risks, reclaiming one’s sense of self, and embracing new beginnings. Leo’s journey is both relatable and uplifting, making this a perfect read for fans of witty, feel-good contemporary fiction. A charming and unforgettable story of love lost and found.

Leo Martino is a goofy, all-in, lover of scrapbooks and plushies who desperately wants a boyfriend and has yet to find someone who wants him for more than a short period. The solution? A checklist! One that is semi-supported by one friend and completely by the other. The idea is to "fix" the things about himself that his past crushes didn't like. We get a whole rollercoaster of self-growth, self-discovery, silliness, as well as what happens around people you must be small near.

As someone who wishes they could scrapbook with their grandma (that's who taught Leo to scrapbook and set him up with one originally), I certainly teared up more than a few times, and I wish this book had existed while I was in high school!

Leo Martino Steals Back his Love is a pretty lighthearted written story with some Leo Martino Steals Back His Love is a lighthearted story with some heavier themes. It is recommended for readers of Simon James Green and Brian D. Kennedy.

Actual rating 3.5 stars.

I really liked the start of this book, and a smile danced on my face so many times. Leo has been in love a lot, but no one has loved him back. But maybe love is closer than he expects.

What I loved most in this story was the friendship between Leo, Varsha, and Dillon. The rest of the story fell a little flat to me, though. It was pretty obvious who Leo would end up with in the end, and sometimes, I wanted the lightheartedness to be a little darker.

But that is a personal preference, and I believe that fans of the authors mentioned above will love Leo and his crushes and the boy who finally loves him back.

Thank you, HarperCollins Children’s Books and NetGalley for this ARC!

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I found this book to be refreshing. It's the kind of clean LGBTQIAP+ romance appropriate for the younger YA audience. It has no sexual activity beyond kissing, which is fine for the younger audience. This book would even be acceptable for middle-grade readers.

The author does a great job of establishing the character's, even to the point of creating very shallow people. While the scenarios sometimes bordered on the absurd (such as how a high school student could afford a $700 t-shirt), they made necessary points in the plot. The eventual couple turned out being predictable, but it was fun watching the main character (Leo) get there on his own.

I ultimately loved the book's theme: be who you are, that trying to become someone else for the sake of love is doomed to failure.

For those people resisting letting their children (middle grade through young adult) read gay romance, this book is the answer. Bravo to the author.

There are some things I really enjoyed about this book. Dillion was very into Leo from the start which was sweet. I also liked Leo’s growth because he did take action to be himself after a LOT of feedback… but I don’t know, it wrapped up so quickly and so many plots points were just dropped like a Silvio and Eric’s dad. The epilogue tried to wrap them up quickly but it felt unfinished - I thought those were the strongest parts of the book and I was sad they weren’t resolved.

* I received a digital copy of this book for review, all thoughts are my own.*

So far, Leo Martino has been unlikely in love. Each of his crushes has left him behind. Determined to find a boyfriend in his senior year, Leo comes up with a checklist to overhaul everything, from his clothes, to his hair, to his personality. To his own surprise, his plan works, and Leo finally seems to have attracted the attention of all the crushes who previously ignored him. But in changing himself, is he leaving the most important parts of his life, including his two best friends, behind?

This is a charming story about first loves, searching for yourself, navigating challenging family dynamics, and finding what is really important. Frequently laugh out loud funny, you can't help but root for Leo (even when he seems focused on the wrong things).

Highly recommended.