Thank you, Simon, for the ARC! Build a Girlfriend was the perfect coming of age story featuring a Latina teenager. I loved getting to see more into her life and how I imagine many teen Latina girls go through with their family, family pressures, and trying to find their place in the world. I absolutely loved Amelia’s character and how she was so done with her family’s supposed curse and her past relationships. Her decision to ask each of her exes why they broke up with her or why things didn’t work out. That was so ballsy, I would’ve been have my feelings hurt over and over, but Amelia handled it with such confidence. When she meets with Leon, her ultimate ex, I loved watching their feelings reignite. It was such a cute YA second chance romance.

a family curse that dooms her family to never find love, but all she wants is to be loved. in walks her ex, the boy she never forgot. will she break his heart or give him hers?

build a girlfriend [★★★★.5]

thank you so much to miss elba and simon & schuster for sending me an ARC through netgalley! this does not affect my thoughts about the book in any way. out now!

this book started out in the most chaotic and insane way possible and i knew i would love this book so very much! and re-dating her exes to figure out how she can become the perfect girlfriend? that’s chaotic and messy 😂 oh and that’s not where it ends, her favorite(?) ex is back in town and she’s going to break his heart this time around. amelia is definitely next level insane in a good way 🤭

ᯓ★ amelia and i have a couple of things in common: loves the idea of love, has no idea what the future looks like and has a chaotic family. girl is so clumsy and loved i hope she always remembers that! and her family might be nosy (what family isn’t?) but they are all soo amazing (tho for that one thing i will forever hold a grudge 😤)

ᯓ★ this is not just a romance book, it’s also a coming of age story and it’s absolutely perfect in every way possible! reading this book i didn’t know of i would die from laughter or extreme sadness over how nothing works out for our adorable girl 😔

i hope you all go and add this book to your tbr because this debut novel is the perfect read this valentine’s day!

The Hernandez women are unlucky in love. They believe there is a family curse that causes all of their relationships to crash and burn. Amelia, feeling incredibly smothered by her family, is determined to break the curse and break free from her family. To do so, she has decided to re-date her exes to determine where she went wrong and use that knowledge to become the perfect un-break-up-able girlfriend. But when her ex to end all exes Leon shows back up in town, she decides to have a little revenge as well. However, as she uses her new skills to reel Leon back in just to break his heart, she learns that old habits are hard to kill. And it might be herself who she’s setting up for heartbreak.

I loved this sooo much! Amelia was a fantastic character with so much resilience. Seeing her get back up again and again when others would have simply curled in a ball was really inspiring. Even though she felt like she was a failure at everything, you could tell that she is destined to succeed in life. More so than the romance, Amelia’s relationship with her family was a major focus of the book. Amelia breaking out of the mold shaped for her by her parental figures, and learning to develop her own individuality. I really loved the entire dynamic of her family, two generations of sisters, and how she vocalized that her needs differed from theirs.

Leon is now one of my favorite book boyfriends. He’s absolutely adorable and sweet and thoughtful. The way he’s head of heels for Amelia and would do anything for her. I thought they were the most perfect couple and I really loved seeing their romance and the journey they had. Second chance romance is so slept on as a trope. His character was also well established and it was interesting to see how his family struggles both mirrored and differed from Amelia’s.

I highly recommend this, a great coming of age novel with a swoon worthy romance.

I'm really conflicted about this, I don't think I can give it a star rating. I am used to ARC's being in near-publication state with very minimal edits being made between ARC syndication and the final publication. I hope the file that I read is not the version that is being printed and sold (I'll explain why further on).

Pro's:
-Amelia was fun, I adored her and her relationships with her sister and with her ex, Leon.
-This had great Puerto Rican cultural representation
-Adults in Amelia's life wrong her and actually apologize, A+, fantastic.

Cons's:
-The premise of the book didn't really follow through, basically all of the Ex Retrospective dating occurred off-screen. So we didn't really see her deep-dive into her dating history, uncover her mistakes, or become "the perfect girlfriend."

-I'm not sure if this got fixed before final publication but my ARC was riddled with continuity errors. The timeline made very little sense. For example, Amelia falls in a hole and that same day is getting hole-splinters tweezed out of her butt, but then references that her hole-falling incident happened the day before... but A) there were not cuts in time and B) there's no way anyone would wait that long to take out the splinters?? At one point she burns her hand and describes the skin melting off. She has a bandage that night, but the next chapter she's perfectly fine again and making empanadas. Additionally, one of her tasks at her job was the move pigs from the showroom to their pen, but she goes home with the pigs specifically still in the showroom and nothing happens with that plotline, her boss never confronts her about literally not doing her job. Other incidents occurred where characters reference something that didn't happen, or don't make sense happening in that order. It felt like scenes were moved/axed without checking how it impacted the scenes that were left. Even for an ARC, it felt very unpolished.

-This last one is minor, but infuriating as a Massachusetts local. A plot point is that Amelia gets a job at The Big E to help pay for a program she wants to enroll in which needs to be paid for by the end of August. But Amelia lives in Canton, MA which is 100 miles away from The Big E (why would she commute that far?), and the Big E is a huge event that takes place in September (after her program's payment deadline). The author could have had the same exact plot if Amelia lived in the Springfield area and had her payment date instead be the end of September, so... why keep these blatantly wrong details when they are so easy to fix?

This book was so funny but yet so real! I love how the author captured Amelia, she’s pure chaos in body and soul but she’s so passionate also. It was the perfect coming of age story.

This book is very charming, but it also wasn't for me; I didn't find myself particularly attached to any of the characters, and I wished we'd actually seen some of Amelia's bad dates instead of just reading recaps every few chapters.

When Amelia comes home from being dumped, again, her family is there for her. Her aunts, her sisters, and her mother are all ready and waiting to commiserate, to empathize, to tell her how much they love her. And it’s nice, yes, and supportive, most certainly … but it’s also getting old. Amelia lives in a house of women; her aunts, her mother, her sisters, and herself. Eight women in one house, all of them struck by the family curse to live without love — well, romantic love — and Amelia is tired of it.

Amelia wants love; she wants to break the family curse and have a partner, a life outside of the family house. And so, Sophia — Amelia’s sister, best friend, and confidant — comes up with a plan: the Hernandez Romance Boot Camp! Amelia will re-date her exes in hopes of finding out what went wrong, what went right, and to learn what she really wants and doesn’t in a relationship.

It’s all going well enough until Leon comes back into Amelia’s life. Leon, the second secret she ever kept from her family; the boy she wanted to move in with; the boy who dumped her — on her birthday — via text. Leon broke her heart and, technically, he’s one of her exes, isn’t he? So Amelia decides to hurt him back, just a little, to show him what it feels like to be dumped. She’s going to make him fall in love with her all over again and then drop him like a stone. But loving Leon has always been easy; he was a friend, first, and a friend, still. The more time Amelia spends dating other people, the more she realizes she misses Leon and, maybe, maybe her plans might have to change.

This is a romance heavy on love, be it from Leon or from Amelia’s many aunts and sisters. The Hernandez family — all women — is full of love and warmth, acceptance and forgiveness. Together, these four women (Tia Sandra, Titi Ivy, Titi Sandra, and of course Amelia’s mom) are raising Amelia, Sophia, Marisol, and baby Zoe as a collective of mother figures. There’s baking and makeup, curfews and crystals, and always love. If you’re into books with strong women characters and loving families, you’re going to have so much fun with this book.

However, if you pick up the book based on the published blurb — the one promising the romance bootcamp where Amelia learns to be a better girlfriend — you’re out of luck. The Hernandez Romance Boot Camp shows up in epigraphs at the beginning of chapters; a few dates are mentioned here and there, but that’s it. It’s something quickly dropped in favor of the second chance romance between Amelia and Leon.

Amelia feels like an outsider in her family. She’s a people pleaser, wanting to make her aunts happy, wanting to make her sisters happy, wanting to to be liked … and it’s wearing on her. Amelia has a plan, the one secret she’s kept even from her sister. She has been accepted into a gap-year program where she intends to find herself, to find out who she is away from the family, away from her aunts and their loving expectations. It’s something always in the back of her mind, the one thing that’s truly hers and not some communal thing owned by the Hernandez’s.

Like with Leon, who she hid from her aunts, the most important things to Amelia are ones she hides from other people. This meant, however, that when Leon dumped her, Amelia didn’t have her aunts to lean on; it also means that, now that he’s back, she still has to hide from her family — other than Sophia — that she’s dating him again. A hard thing to do when his father is working on the family bakery and Leon’s there to help out.

Leon grew up with only his father as family. His parents divorced and his mother moved to a different state, and when he had a chance for a football scholarship, he decided to visit his mother for a year or two for school. But now Leon’s back, no longer interested in football and now determined to work alongside his father in the family construction business. He’s also still hung up on Amelia, cautiously eager to rekindle their friendship, and when Amelia seems to be open for something more, Leon can’t help but open himself to it. She was always the bright point in his life, and it’s something he needs desperately, now.

Together the two of them have a warm, easy chemistry. More than friends, as comfortable as an old married couple; it’s sweet, and it’s well done. And then there’s the inevitable third-act breakup, and … that’s why this book is four stars instead of five. The boot camp — the re-dating scheme Sophia came up with for Amelia — shows up again. Her plans for re-dating her exes and for Leon are revealed publicly. However, most of the fallout from being put on blast, having an entire town know what she was doing, having all her exes realize they were being used by her? Not in the book. Nor is there a reaction from Amelia — nor consequences — to having her whole life tossed up online for someone else’s clicks and mockery. Not a thought, not a moment of upset or reflection, not even a shrug. It not only takes back seat to the conflict with Leon; it might as well not exist.

The two great loves of Amelia’s life, Leon and her family, are undeniably the point of this book. And that’s fine, but I do feel like the blurb was misleading, and the boot camp moments don’t mesh in perfectly with the Leon storyline. However, the writing is so very good, the pace is pleasant, the characters are so vivid and warm and real that this book was a delight to read. But the giant hanging plot thread was distracting.

I loved this book!! Amelia's just like me fr. I love her. She's so chaotic and messy. I relate to her so muchh. I felt so heard reading her thoughts haha. It was such a fun book. I love second chance romances so much and it was done so good in it. I absolutely adored the sisters' bond.

Leon and Amelia's interactions were so funny, sweet and everything I Iove. Overall I really really enjoyed this one.

Read this book if you like:
second chance romance
strong female characters
family curse
queer fmc
hate to love

Thank you so much Elba Luz and Netgalley for the eARC!!

Build a Girlfriend is fun and chaotic with lots of summer vibes. It took me a little bit to really get into it, but once I got used to the characters & their personalities I started to fly through it. The loud and chaotic family trope is one that is overwhelming for me and right out of the gate you’re thrown into the Hernandez family madness. Once I got used to it, I enjoyed seeing the back and forth between all of the aunties. There are quite a few moments that tug at your heartstrings with several of the characters, not just our main character, Amelia. She’s lovable and funny. She’s also clumsy. The secondhand embarrassment I felt was crippling and thank god for little sisters because Sofia was perfection. *chefs kiss* As far as Amelia’s history with Leon, you’re left in the dark about specifics for most of the book & it felt like the right balance of him being this nice guy, but can he be trusted. I was dying to find out what happened because it’s difficult to dislike him. He’s a fantastic book boyfriend.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for sending me an advance copy & thank you to NetGalley for the e-arc.

amelia hernandez has grown up hearing about her family’s curse: no woman in her family has ever had a long-lasting relationship. she’s determined to be the exception, though. so, she tracks down her exes to figure out where she went wrong to become a better girlfriend. when she unwillingly reunites with her ex leon, she decides this is a good opportunity to get a little revenge for how their relationship ended. however, this is much easier said than done, as her old feelings are rekindled.

i was so excited to read this book as soon as i heard its title, so i’m glad i got to read an early copy! this book was so funny, but had its serious moments, too, which makes a perfect rom-com, at least in my book. i really felt for amelia’s struggles with her love life and familial expectations. i loved how these aspects played out throughout the book, and i think they were handled with care.

i’d recommend this book to anyone who enjoys YA rom-coms. i can’t wait to see what’s next from elba luz!

Plenty of laughs and relationship advice wrapped up in revenge that goes astray. Fantastic entrance to the world of being a published author! Can’t wait to see what’s next.

Amelia Hernandez's latest breakup is, sadly, no surprise. Her family is "cursed" to never have a lasting relationship, and only daughters are born in the brief relationships that do occur. The eight-woman Hernandez household may be primarily dedicated to opening their dream bakery, but now Amelia's mother, aunts, and sisters are turning their attention to a new project: helping her beak her curse. And to do that, she's going to go back and date all her exes, using data from each date to build up "what works" in the dating scene.

There's just one problem: Leon, who dumped her on her birthday and disappeared for two years, is back in town. And he and his dad are helping with construction of the bakery. He seems more than happy to act like nothing went wrong between them, but Amelia still hurts. So her plan takes a new turn: she'll win his heart, then crush it just like he crushed hers. But maintaining her many secret and goals becomes harder. Because there's one more thing she hasn't told anyone: she doesn't want to work in the bakery, and she's saving up to go on a gap year program. Can she get the money she needs, succeed in her plan to break Leon's heart, and break the Hernandez curse? Or are her feelings for Leon something more than anger?

Build a Girlfriend follows what's becoming kind of a standardized YA rom-com plot progression: character has something bad happen to them, has terrible idea, lies about terrible idea, world comes crashing down around them, and then they have to atone. This doesn't make the book itself bad, of course. It's absolutely formulaic, but Luz tells an important story with that formula that will resonate for many firstborns. The tug-of-war between finding out who you really are and being a people-pleaser is real. And for all that Build a Girlfriend follows the YA beats, it has a valid and wholehearted message about the possibility of standing up for yourself while showing love to others.

Very cute YA romance with a focus on the importance of being yourself and finding someone who loves you for who you are and not who you can be for them. Our heroine, Amelia, has a great deal of character in that she is much more than one thing at a time, a vivid and lively protagonist who doesn’t always make the best decisions - and who among us always does - but learns from her mistakes and grows exponentially over the course of the novel.

I also enjoyed the additional themes of self-discovery, the importance of family, and also the willingness of the adults in the novel to apologize to the teenagers when they make a mistake. It’s as rare in life for guardians to do this as it is in fiction, and that is truly a shame. We, none of us our perfect and while, like the aunts, we may have the best of intentions as parents/parental figures, we do make mistakes: it’s only fair that if we expect our children to apologize when they make a mistake, we do the same as even Titi Sandra does here. The Hernandez family is such a lovely model of affection without expectation, of unconditional love, something to which we should all aspire and a wonderful model on which young adults can model their own future families.

Definitely recommend for young adults, and even adults, looking for respectful, kind, honest relationships both between partners and among families.

I thought this was a really cute YA Romance. I don't read much of that genre, so this was a nice change of pace. I am ready for the rest of the world to read and review this book because I had a great time with it!

At first I had a hard time with this book because I’m not really into MC’s that are clumsy. Although I loved the family aspect of the story I wasn’t a big fan of the MC. She was a bit too whiny and I had a hard time believing the premise. It was only the ending that sold me about the sweetness of the story and by the end I had come around. It was a decent read if you give it time to deepen. 3.5 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

The publisher reached out to me about this one and I wasn’t completely sure if I’d enjoy it, but I loved the idea of all the cultural aspects to the family, and the whole find out with the exes maybe what was the problem is one type of story that is fun as well. I was lucky enough to have snow days off from work and got to read almost straight through this in a little over a day.

There was a lot of humor, between how the family interacted with each other, which I loved – reminded me in ways of the sarcastic qualities of my own family, and the clumsiness and awkwardness that Amelia seemed to go through life and on her dates with. It was easy to see why Amelia wanted to get out and have a gap year away from her family. As wonderful as they were to have around and just be there for her, it also was a bit suffocating for her, not to mention no one had ever really asked what she actually wanted. She gave a description at the end of how she wasn’t good at anything, and not in a way that she was putting herself down, but a way she was describing that the choices she’d made led her to not know what she liked or try to get better at things other than what her family wanted or expected her to do. And those weren’t the things she was good at, or cared to get better at.

Her romantic life was funny, but also I definitely cringed for her a lot. The whole going back to try with exes reminded me both of one of my favorite books/movies – What’s Your Number? and also the episode of The Big Bang Theory when Raj had all his exes meet him and then he asked them questions about what went wrong and what he could do to improve. Of course there was the ONE ex, Leon, who suddenly showed back up in her life. The one who had broken her heart, and never apologized or even explained why he did what he did. And here he is back again in her life, and he still does neither of those things.

That irritated me for her, I mean if he’d just explained it could have saved so much heartache early on. Not to mention maybe she wouldn’t have gotten the revenge plan in her head. All the different things that made Amelia end up going viral, embarrassing things, made so much of the book, and wow, it just sucked for her! And oh did I want to punch that person at the end, I had a feeling that the little journal was going to get in the wrong hands, I just didn’t expect that to happen!

But it wasn’t just a romance, there was the whole issue with her family and how she felt with them, even as she loved them as much as she did. The moment when she talked about why she wasn’t good at anything, and then the whole what you might call “come to Jesus” discussion with her family was so good. There was so much emotion, and so many things that came out, it was great having her mom kind of come out and take a stand, as it seemed Amelia’s mother really did need to do something to take care of herself. And the things that we learned about her aunts, things they’d done and not told her, and how they reacted and possibly changed after the big talk, all of it made for so much more than just a contemporary romance type of story.

I had one small issue, but it is something that would be very unpopular as an opinion right now, so I won’t list it, and it was the reason I was unsure about taking the book and marked it down to 4.5 stars on my blog. However I was so into this story, once I picked it up with time to read I could barely put it down. Another one I can’t wait to share with my students!

Thank you so much to Simon Teen & NetGalley for the ARC!

This was a great YA contemporary romance - very realistic to the teenage experience through the eyes of our MC Amelia but also very mature in a good way.
I loved the romance, characters, and emphasis on her family and their fun, chaotic home life with so many women. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a great YA!

Book Review: Build a Girlfriend by Elba Luz

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (4.5 stars)

Oh, Build a Girlfriend, you charming little rom-com. This book gave me all the warm fuzzies, especially with its heartwarming focus on family and the adorable chaos of Amelia’s journey.

Let’s start with Amelia. She’s the kind of protagonist you can’t help but root for—quirky, clumsy, and just so endearingly human. I loved how her clumsiness wasn’t just a cute gimmick but tied into her deeper insecurities and growth. Watching her fumble (both literally and emotionally) and then rise above it made her arc so satisfying.

Can we talk about her family? The predominantly female, close-knit dynamic was such a joy to read. From supportive moments to hilarious meddling, it felt vibrant and real. You could feel the love in every scene, and it added so much depth to the story.

Now, Leon. Oh, Leon. He’s the perfect MMC for a rom-com like this—kind, charming, and just the right amount of brooding. Their chemistry had me grinning like a fool, but here’s where the miscommunication trope comes in. Sigh. I wanted to shake Leon and Amelia for their lack of honest conversations. It stretched a bit too long for my liking, but at least the payoff made up for the frustration.

The rom-com vibes were spot on, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, swoony scenes, and that sprinkle of chaos that keeps you flipping the pages. If you’re looking for a book with heart, humor, and a protagonist you’ll want to hug (and maybe shake a little), Build a Girlfriend is a great pick.

It’s not quite a perfect five stars for me, mostly because of the lingering miscommunication. But honestly? The charm, humor, and family warmth more than makeup for it. This one will stick with me for a while!

📚 Perfect for fans of The Hating Game and The Unhoneymooners.

In the Hernandez family, every romantic relationship is cursed to come to an untimely end. So, it’s no surprise to her family that Amelia once again finds herself single. But Amelia is convinced that she is going to be the one to break the cycle.

To learn from her past mistakes, Amelia has decided to embark on a tour of exes, trying to figure out what went wrong in each relationship. With this information, she will become un-breakupable. When Leon, her first true heartbreak, enters the scenes, it’s her chance to get a little revenge, too. But what happens when she starts to develop feelings for Leon instead?

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advanced copy of Build a Girlfriend by Elba Luz to review! I downloaded this one because the premise sounded like a good time, and I definitely wasn’t wrong. This book will add a ray of sunshine to what is a dreary month (January).

While Amelia, our star, is a well-developed, well-rounded character, the cast behind her was as well. One of the highlights is Amelia’s interactions with her family, who are all trying to give her dating advice. Even though none of them have technically had a successful romantic relationship. It works together to create some great rom-com moments.

In addition, we get to learn more about Amelia by going through her past relationships with her. Not only do we get to see how she’s grown in the past, but also how she’s growing throughout the course of the story. All the characters and plot points really work well together to create a funny, well thought-out story.

All in all, if you need a fun rom-com to get you through the winter season, definitely pick this book up in January!

This story was such a cute romcom. The main character lives in a house with all her aunts, Mom and sisters. He aunts are working on opening a family bakery.
Amelia is such a relatable character as she tries to figure out why she can't keep a relationship. She's also a bit of a klutz and ends up in different situations that sometimes end up viral. I love that she learns to stand up for what she really wants in life.