Leo and the Crazy Genre Hotel had such a fun and imaginative premise, a hotel serving as a refuge for characters escaping their own broken storylines is the sort of idea that immediately captures the imagination. The mix of detectives, princesses, and magical visitors promised a whimsical adventure, and I was intrigued to see how Leo, a fourteen-year-old newcomer, would become caught up in their tales.

Unfortunately, the execution didn’t quite live up to the concept for me. While the setting was unique, the plot felt disjointed, and the narrative threads never really came together in a satisfying way. I also struggled to connect with the characters, there wasn’t enough development to make them feel real or memorable, and I never felt they truly grew or changed.

It’s a lovely idea, but for me, it simply missed the mark. Readers who enjoy quirky, genre-bending premises might still find something to enjoy in Magnolia House, but I was left wishing for more depth and cohesion.

After loving the first adventure with Leo, I knew I had to jump into the next installment as soon as possible. With a lovable cast of characters and some higher stakes, I enjoyed the tale of a quirky hotel and the lessons it served for our cast, as well as the power of determination.

This story takes place the summer after the first book, and with Leo being 14 soon, moving fully into the Young Adult category. Leo and his mom have moved to Fairhope, Alabama (near Mobile) and to help his mom in contributing to the family income, takes a job at one of the quirkiest hotels out there. It’s very old fashioned (there’s no computers) and each room comes with a book. And that’s the least strange things about this hotel. Yes, magic is involved.

The characters were interesting and fun. The returning characters, like Leo and his mom get developed even more and I love seeing familiar faces come back. The new characters were rather interesting, with their own quirks, and I think my favorite was a certain storybook character from a fantasy realm that I’m not going to get into. I do like how many of the characters are hard working and determined, while others have their own demons to deal with.

The lessons are more subtle and mature in a way. It’s about how there isn’t “one right path”, how much a moment can change entire lives, and facing the consequences for your mistakes (and Leo makes a lot of them in this book). It also has some bittersweet moments, including the ending. Leo has to learn and grow in many ways, and realizes that he can’t solve a big problem like saving the hotel alone. I do appreciate some of Leo’s ideas as well. Many moments had me smile, like talking about the New Orleans Saints bad call, and mentioning some fourth wall breaking moments, which actually does make sense in context.

The one thing that brought the score down a bit was the pacing. It took a bit for the story to get going and overall, the pacing was good, but not as great as the first book. There was also a moment where I thought something did happen, but didn’t happen until a later chapter. Also, I felt like the fates of a couple of the characters (the storybook ones) were still in the air.

Once again, Diana Bustelo narrates with a very expressive storyteller voice, which is fitting for a story like this, and she enhances the already immersive prose.

If you’re looking for something unique and out of the box, give this book a try!

Leo is looking for a summer job and he ends up at a hotel set to be demolished. What should have been an easy couple months worth of work ends up as a fantastical adventure where stories (quite literally) come to life.

Things I enjoyed: The idea of a story-book refuge was extremely interesting! Having a place for characters to come to get away from their own timelines felt like a breath of fresh air among a genre that seems to have children/ teenagers going into the stories themselves. The narrator of the audiobook really brought the story to life with the voices and the accents to help differentiate a wide scope of characters. The protagonist, Leo, resonated with me as a (former) child who spent way too much time thinking about their parents well-being.

Now, there were several things that kept this from being a 4 or 5 star read and the main one that still comes to mind is motivation. Leo jumps head first into the hotel and wants to save it even though the actual hotel owners do not seem to be fussed at all. His previous history teacher waltzes in and also just helps around the hotel with no clear motivation or drive as to why. Understanding why characters act the way they do is a big part of reading for middle-school and high-school readers because it helps them see themselves in the characters. The lack of motivation and the pacing just made it feel like I was waiting for a climax or twist that never seemed to come.

This was probably a 3.5 for me, but I didn’t round up to 4 because it didn’t seem quite there. The creativity to come up with this storyline was so good and I think overall it’s a great story to show the power of books! I loved the tie ins to the last book as well but that it wasn’t 100% necessary to have to read it to get this one. Overall I felt the book was good but it felt like it was missing a little something. There were a couple times where I felt like the book was ramping up but it didn’t quite hit it. I still would recommend this book though and have thought about purchasing to add to my little free library!

As for the audiobook specifically, I think the narrator did a great job. I really enjoyed listening to this as well so I could hear the correct pronunciation when other languages were used.

In Leo and the Crazy Genre Hotel 13-year-old Leo has just moved to a new town and gets a job at the Magnolia Hotel, a hotel that is home to writers, storybook runaways, and a mystery that needs to be solved in order for the Magnolia to stay open.

This book had a really strong start with a quirky cast of characters that sucked you into the story. A hotel where you are encouraged to read and are given a book to pair up with every room? Sign me up! Leo was a very real character with very real problems and you were given strong magical realism with the introduction to this hotel that housed some unique voices. I thought the narrator of the audiobook did a phenomenal job, especially with all the spanish mixed into the book.

About 2/3 of the way through the book the story started getting a little more far-fetched and it started to lose me a little bit. I just think that things could have played out better. I'm not going to say that I particularly liked the ending, but it did wrap up in a way that flowed with the rest of the story. 3.5 stars overall, rounded up for originality.

Love, love, love how many books are referenced in this book. Some were already on my TBR a lot got added. Leo is a fun boy that seemed to act and talk in an age appropriate manner. Looked the oddball elements of the Magnolia. Highly recommend book but at times felt a bit long maybe one or two twists less would have been okay.

Even though it’s marked as YA I feel like the target audience is younger.
What drowned my attention to the book was the cover and title. From those two aspects it feels like the story it’s going to be some amazing fantastical adventure but the pace felt a bit slow for my liking.
Leo finds himself in need to help save a hotel that serves as a refuge, from demolition! Between magical places and magical characters and a lot of literary references the adventure unravels. The way that Leo finds to save the hotel in the end felt a little rushed and overly simplistic in a way that kind off undermines the journey.
Sometimes it feels like I’m inside a Dora the explorer episode with all the Spanish and English repetitions, I understand it’s a good way for younger people to learn the language, I’m just not the targeted audience.
Overall a good story with interesting characters!

Whimsical, heartfelt, and delightfully creative - 4.55 stars

Leo and the Crazy Genre Hotel was such a refreshing and magical read. The book balances charm and emotional depth beautifully, and though it’s clearly aimed at a younger audience, there’s something timeless and heartwarming about its core message: that everyone deserves the chance to rewrite their story.
If you love magical realism, and heart-led adventures, this is absolutely worth checking into.

The audiobook version of this title was disappointing. I could not get behind the narrator. And for me That takes me out of the story wondering why this person was choosen even though they don't embody the main character.
Don't get me wrong her narration was clear and she performed with feeling and heart. Unfortunatly she isn't Leo, and even with how hard she tried I still found myself taken away from the story sometimes because of it.
That being said, the story itself is wonderful. The Magnolia is a place I would love to stumble accross and have an extended stay in. I loved that even though this is the second in a series it is not necessary to have read the books in order. There are references to actions from the first book but this story stands alone as an imaginative work of fiction with characters who grow over the course of the story and a hotel you want to visit. There is more to that story than is told in this book and I would love to see the story of the Magnolia on its own. Tracing the history of the hotel through stories, how the book club started, how often the books get changed out and who if anyone determines what a rooms read should be.

A middle-grade fantasy book, friendship and character travel by a 13-year-old who gets a job in a hotel that employs him during the summer. I think it’s a book that my 12-year-old son would enjoy very much, for me it was a little difficult to hook, I think it is because the way in which the events unfold is narrated, seen and starred by a child, everything is childish, naive and messy.

The idea seemed magnificent, the promise of magic, fantasy and adventure always catches my eye, but its execution was somewhat disappointing. I understand that the MC is a child, but some events are unlikely even within for the genre and the main characters. I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing, (although if it is, I can have a say because I’m Colombian LIKE THE MOTHER of Leo), but I would never leave my 13-year-old son alone at home while I go on a trip with his former history teacher who is now hitting on me. I would have understand if she had left him with a grandmother, with a relative, but no, and, How are you going to leave him completely alone for whole days? At 13 you are still a child, and I feel that a Colombian mother in another country would not leave her son like that. Of course it was necessary for the plot, but that’s where that detail of "mishandled events in the plot" comes in. I feel that many aspects of the plot and worldbuilding could have been better exploited and that many others were left unfinished. Too bad.

On the other hand, the magical fantasy part of the plot comes too late for my taste. Everything is very situational and monotonous by half a book before it gets interesting. I would have liked a little more focus on the Magnolia's Hotel time -ravel-reading club.

Now, it is really personal, but when I heard this part (it was an audiobook), I could only think "GENTRIFICATION, FUCK IT" and it’s that SPOILER HERE the way to save the hotel was to make Gabriel García Márquez born in the United States with the help of time travel, which means he is no longer a Colombian, but an American writer. I did not like that, sorry. END SPOILER.

I liked very much that there were so many Latin characters, the MC being half Latino, the amount of culture put in was nice, and it is directly Colombian representation, I felt it well represented, although "obviously" they eat arepas every day like all Colombians do (?) I do not judge, certainly if the mother was Mexican, they would have eaten tacos because that is their stereotype and it seems to be inseparable from the characters with their countries.

Now, on the narration of the audiobook itself, I must say that I loved it. Love that the narrator when speaking in Spanish modulates the accent when it is a native speaker, so that it sounds genuine, and that she "americanizes" when the words in Spanish are said by an American. It is a spectacular detail that she could portray the personalities of the characters by their dialects. The narrator has several voices in her, she is spectacular in what she does, I think it was a success that she told this novel, puts the necessary feeling and gives the right emotions. I loved it.

Anyway, it was a book that I enjoyed despite its improbable things, not only events, but attitudes from the characters that did not let me connect to the point of feeling that they were real people. A child or teenager is sure to enjoy it very much, so yes I recommend it. <3

This is a sweet story of Leo taking on a summer job at a hotel and accidentally discovering a book club that may have magical qualities (or at least that's the only thing that can explain characters walking off the page)

Leo and the Crazy Genre Hotel (Leo's Magical Journeys, #2)
by Tsvi Jolles
The book is told from the point of view of Leo is a story of using books to find magic. The old Town hotel finds new life through books and characters. This connection creates a tapestry story that shows how real some stories are to readers. I found this a great book for young readers. The way you are introduced to young adult readers, to the classics will create an interest in the stories to readers. The book shows how even with just a little hope the most dire of circumstance can be changed.

I'm a huge fan of books that treat the book world as a real thing, with the characters ready to jump off the pages and into real life. So that was how I ended up wanting to read this, even though I haven't read the first in the series yet. And it delivered!
Leo is 13 and working a summer job in a hotel. He notices odd people and events, and ends up trying to help the book people who depend on the hotel. This is different from other books I've read like this because there's also time travel!
Thanks to NetGalley, I got to listen to the audiobook. The narration was great even though they didn't choose someone who sounded like Leo. This book is for younger readers, maybe middle school/early teens.

Leo and the Crazy Genre Hotel by Tsvi Jolles offers a fun and quirky premise, but it didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

The idea of a hotel where characters from different books come together in a secret sanctuary after fleeing broken storylines is clever and creative, and I can appreciate the playful, imaginative nature of the world Jolles has built.

Leo is a likable character, and his journey through this bizarre and ever-changing hotel kept me engaged for the most part.

However, the pacing felt a little weird at times. While the concept is intriguing,

I think it could have been developed more deeply to give the world more depth and complexity, but this is targeted towards middle graders, so this just could be because I’m older.


Overall, Leo and the Crazy Genre Hotel is a charming and imaginative read, it’s fun for readers who enjoy whimsical and inventive stories.

This book is really sweet and quite pensive and reflective for a book for young teens. But its also one of those books that nicely straddles the middle grade and YA audiences.; a good book for the transition age if you will.

What I think I liked the most about this book is that the resolutions were always a little unexpected and they unfolded in kind of a slower manner. Considering this book was fairly adventurous, there were hardly any big moments where the story went from "everything is doomed" to suddenly, "through the power of character development, all is now right in the world". I really appreciated that the characters made sort of smaller changes one by one. This also gave the book a similar feel to a Hero's journey type of plot structure, but made the resolutions a good amount less predictable.

I also loved the relationships between all the characters in this book even some of the more "antagonistic" characters. But I especially appreciate the way the adults and the kids interact with each other. Its nice to see friendships and trust and encouragement between kids and adults. One point I wanted to nitpick on this though, which in no way affected my rating of the book, I've been seeing a lot of books with child workers lately. What's with that? I'd be surprised if any 14 year olds in the US could just walk into a hotel and get a front desk job after a five minute conversation. Certainly not in 2025. Maybe if they are family to the owners, or if it was 1980 or earlier, but this book takes place in 2025. Again, this didn't affect my rating, but I've read at least 3 middle grade books in the last couple weeks featuring pre-teens with actual jobs which is wild to me when compared to the real world and it does affect how realistic the story feels.

This book is a bit long for younger teens in my opinion too so it might be best for a more serious young reader. But the world, story and characters are all rich and immersive. There's a lot of really deep, vivid descriptions and beautiful imagery.

I'd recommend this book for any younger teens who really love reading and like reading about reading and stories. Or older readers who like the nostalgic feel of older buildings and classic books.

Fun and enjoyable story. I liked the characters and storylines. I liked the narration as it brought the world to like for me.

Thank you netgalley and the publishers for this ARC.

This story follows a young boy called Leo as he takes on a part time summer holiday job at the Magnolia house Hotel. After a few shifts Leo discovers a book club in the hotel basement and from then on all manner of things begin to happen, from characters seeming to walk out of the book pages to time travel.
It was a rip roaring adventure and I enjoyed it immensely.
The narrators voice was smooth and her tone was gentle. The production was done very well with the characters each being distinguished and easy to follow.

This book was hard for me to rate, because the only reason it isn’t five stars is because of how juvenile it is. I rate off of enjoyment, and if I was eight years younger, this would have been a five star read. Instead, I give it a three. The premise and idea of this book are so interesting, and I would love to see someone, this author or not, translate it into an adult/ya book.
The execution of this was really just too young for my test, and thats the main reason it is three stars. That said, there are most definitely some middle grade books that I would give five stars too.
For some reason, I really struggled to find anything that makes me feel attached to Leo or the other characters. Which is a main, and very important, aspect of most middle grade books.
Other than that though, the execution of this book was fairly flawless and done very well.
Narrator: this is going to sound terrible, but for me, (for me!!) it helps build the world (when characters have internal dialogue) to have a narrator that sounds like them. For example, Leo is a part Columbian 13 yr old boy, and I felt like that was really missing from the audio. The narrator felt like a woman with mortgage and taxes, even throughout Leo’s internal dialogue. That said, this is me being super nit picky, because it didn’t bother me terribly.
Anyways! Thank you netgalley, appreciate you guys as always ❤️

Thanks to Netgallery and the publisher for the audiobook version.

I didn't really know what to do think going into this. This was a cute book, I wish this was a job I could have as a kid. The beginning was a bit slow for me but it started to pick up and this book wasn't really meant for me age wise but I thought it was a nice lighter book.

3.5 stars

I am so torn on this one. I absolutely LOVED the idea of the book. The blurb on the jacket sounded amazing. So fun and magical and the perfect YA book idea. I was VERY torn about how to rate this book, but in this case, I sadly had to go with my gut.

The idea of the Hotel being a “secret sanctuary for characters who’ve fled their own broken storylines” sounded epic. I was thinking we’d get some cool known characters (maybe depending on copyright) and some exciting made-up characters that would all be roaming the halls of the Magnolia House. Maybe, they’d even help “solve the problem” our Leo had gotten himself into. That being said, I don’t think two storybook characters being mentioned in passing really counts.

And the jumping was confusing. Storybook characters? Time-travel? Re-writing history? What is this book about? I feel that half way through the book, the writer just glued together a different story and sent it. It did not make sense.

Some positives: You did not have to read the 1st book in the series, to follow along with the 2nd book. Some characters and ideas from the 1st book were mentioned in this one, but enough was explained that there was no confusion. The artwork for the book cover was beautiful! It’s actually what caught my eye. Also, the narrator was listed as Diana Bustelo. She was perfect and did the characters justice. I was a little surprised it was a female reading for our male lead; however, Diana had a smooth depth about her voice that it worked just fine. (10/10 for the narrator!)

Oh, I’m so sad to do this to our fabulous main character Leo, but I was just so disappointed. Regardless, thank you NetGalley for the read. So appreciate the chance to expand my reading!