This one was a bit gimmicky for me. "Love" as the narrator just wasn't appealing to me. I didn't connect with the characters, possibly because of the odd narrator, I'm not sure. Overall it wasn't for me. I wasn't able to finish it. My attention wandered too often. Likely I am just the wrong audience for it.

The Romantics is an utter and refreshing delight! From having Love as the narrator, to Gael as the main protagonist (I don't often read YA (romantic) contemporary with a male main character, to the footnotes - this is just the lighthearted fluff (grounded in realness) that I love. I found Gael to be totally relatable. Reading his experience with first love and heartbreak (of various kinds) feels real and compelling. I'm excited to read more from this author. 3 out of 5 wine glasses.

With an unconventional narrator in the form of Love itself, this romantic tale of teenagers falling in and out of love moved away from the norm. An interesting twist and an enjoyable read.

Maybe this book is cliche, but this is exactly what Konen was aiming for. She has literally lampshaded so many YA tropes and made it work. She takes a boy (a real Romantic), a Rebound and the Right Girl and plays them together, having Love narrate it all so we know all the way through this book which way it has to go. On paper this may seem like it wouldn't work, but it was absolutely perfectly executed and I honestly cannot stress how well this was done.

I loved all of the characters in this book - Gael seemed a little weak to start with but by the end of the book he had found direction and knew what was right, so I loved that. Sammy was just absolutely perfect - the college girl babysitter that Gael should be with. Even Cara was well written and then there's Anika, Gael's ex who I despised but in the best possible way.

The best part of this book is the writing though, Leah Konen wrote a brilliant book but the voice that she gave to our narrator was so witty and dry. Sarcasm reigns, and there were some amazing quotes in there - this is sole reason to read this book if nothing else.

Overall, The Romantics was a well written and very entertaining book with clever characters and amazing dialogue.

Overall Rating: A-

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this ARC of The Romantics by Leah Konen.

Gael loves love, and particularly loves to be in love. So when he discovers that his long time crush, and finally girlfriend has left him for his best friend, his life falls apart. How will he survive if he has no one to love? Add to that, his parents have just separated and it looks like his dad may be having an affair.

This is a story told from the perspective of LOVE herself. We watch as she does everything she can to bring the right people together at the right time, classifying the different types of lovers on the way (cynic, dreamer, hopeless).

I thought this was an adorable YA read. If you you love love, you'll love this too.

I absolutely loved this book. I felt a little silly because I never knew what Rom- Com stood for until this book. Do you guy's know what it means? I will tell you Rom- Com is short for Romantic Comedy.

I would recommend this book. You guy's will fall in love with it.

Looking forward to reading more books by this author.

"... leave it to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope to convince a guy that someone who straight-up irks him will also somehow save him."

super quick YA contemporary read. I didn't find it particularly profound or unique, but I still enjoyed reading it. I would recommend this book for anyone looking to get out of a reading slump, to someone looking for a cute YA romance, or people who are fans of Lauren Myracle and Rainbow Rowell.

I probably would not purchase a hard copy of this book for myself.

I DNF'ed this book because the writing didn't really grab my interest, and it seemed choppy and still in a WIP stage instead of getting ready to be published.

The concept was very cute, and I had hoped the book itself would live up to it.

I love YA, but sometimes YA romances really don't click for me.

I enjoyed this book. It was very different! I didn't expect to read a book that was written BY Love, which made it all the better. While the story was a little cliche, the POV is what made it!

I consider myself a fairly generous reviewer - and try to spend time on books I enjoy - but this was one of the worst books I read in 2016, and I don't say that lightly. It was poorly written, stereotypical, misogynistic, and downright dull. I have high expectations when it comes to contemporary YA, and there are just so many better books out there that you could be reading instead of this.

THE ROMANTICS by Leah Konen is an absolutely charming exploration of love, friendship, and family.

After Gael’s parents separate, he finds out that his girlfriend has been cheating on him with his best friend. Love (our quirky little narrator and orchestrator of events) is about to guide Gael towards a new love, when he falls (literally) too fast for a new (and wrong) girl. Love sets out to make things right and to not so subtly nudge Gael to notice the girl who has been there all along…

Making Love a character and giving her a voice was a brilliant choice. I loved watching this mythical being pull the strings and work her magic. Konen’s writing is quirky, funny, and smart. Plus the pop culture references were a big hit.

A fantastic read!

Thank you to netgalley and Amulet Books for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In The Romantics we follow Love who has messed up by letting a marriage end in divorce because he thought they would be fine and wouldn't drift apart. So to try and make things right she wants to help the couple's son fall in love with the right person.

This book is told from the perspective of Love which I found to be a really interesting premise. Her voice was quite funny and she was her own character that I got to know and love. I liked that even though she is a godly/spiritual entity she had her own wants, wishes and regrets.

All the characters were pretty likeable; Gael was an absolute sweetheart and my heart went out to him so much through all the mess his parents had left. And his parents just didn't really seem to care about how upset their divorce had left him. His little sister was adorable. The only person I wasn't a huge fan of was Cara, Gael's love interest for a lot of the novel, something about her was just off to me, she felt a bit fickle.

This was a really easy book for me to read, the pacing was just right and it read really easily. So if you want a funny YA romance novel that you can read in a short space of time and get quite wrapped up in then I would say that this one is right up your street.

One thing that I have to point out is that there were a lot of current references, which I enjoyed whilst reading as I love stuff like that because it feels more lifelike because I relate in a way, but this could date the book quite a lot. Like whilst I wouldn't say it's going to be a YA classic just because it's not got the hype, but that could hold it back from being read a few years from now because people don't understand the references, especially teens who constantly have new fads and language.

Love is patient. Love is kind. Love totally dropped the ball with Gael Brennan's parents and feels the best recourse is to save Gael's own love life. And that means keeping him away from the rebound girl.

"... leave it to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope to convince a guy that someone who straight-up irks him will also somehow save him."

I might cross-stitch that onto a pillow.

The problem with Gael is that he's a romantic. Not like he's into romantic comedies or anything like that, because he's not. He likes real movies, like Wes Anderson ones. But he falls in love too hard and too fast. So it's not surprising that his very first relationship ends in disaster when he blurts out the big ILY way too early. Hurt, Gael is desperate for a reminder that love is real. So when he runs into Cara in a meet-cute, he puts too much importance on the moment. But even as Gael is perusing Cara, Love knows his real destiny is with Sammy, his younger sister's babysitter.

This is a cute, fun read. That said, if you remove the quirky element of Love as the narrator, this becomes a very basic, expected romance. It's clear early on that a Sammy and Gael pairing is the endgame, and while I accepted the premise, I didn't think it grew organically. Sammy was supposed to be perfect for Gael, but I didn't really see it. In any case, this is a quick and mostly satisfying YA romance for those so inclined.

I had this book for a really long time on my NetGalley shelf so December was the month I had to read it. I've been trying to get up to date with all my ARCs and this was already overdue. I don't know why I took so long to read this one because it was super cute and fun.

I really enjoyed the story and most of the characters in this book. This book was a little bit different for a few reasons. First we have an interesting narrator (which I'll talk about later) and a few different stories. While this book is mostly about Gael and his way to find love it also showed some other stories of another different characters and it also showed the different kinds of love that could exist. I really enjoyed to see this side of the story and, as a I said before, it was super cute. While I liked Gael as a character I still had a few problems with him. First of all, I didn't like that he thought he needed a new girlfriend so soon after a break up. I really didn't like that he thought lonely people wouldn't be happy... it got to my nerves. I especially didn't like towards his parents divorce. I would know how he felt... my parents got divorced when I was a teenager too. Did I act like him towards my parents?? NO!! You know why? Because whatever happened between them had nothing to do with me and they were still my parents. I really hated the way he treated his parents sometimes. But overall I liked him and I felt bad for him a lot too. I also like some of the other characters but there were a few that would get to my nerves... People, if you cheat don't try to act like nothing happened in front of the person you cheated on. Also, don't think the person will want to be your friend right away too because it doesn't happen, so please, STOP BEING SHITTY FRIENDS!

One of my favorite things of this book was that Love was the narrator of this book. I just loved that we had an omniscient narrator and I loved Love's sense of humour. Sometimes Love was hilarious and would make me laugh out loud. I think it also changed the story a lot because it gave it a different perspective. Can we have more books with Love as a narrator please??

Overall, this was a cute and enjoyable read. If you need something fast for a fun afternoon you might give this one a try.