Boys Like Girls reached number 55 on the Billboard 200 and spawned three singles: "Hero/Heroine", "The Great Escape" and "Thunder".

To promote the record, the band toured across North America and the UK as support for various pop-punk acts, with appearances at music festivals and amusement parks.

Boys Like Girls formed in late 2005 when vocalist/guitarist Martin Johnson, previously of the band IDK, wrote a few songs that he wished to record.

He subsequently brought in bassist Bryan Donahue and drummer John Keefe, both of whom Johnson had played within local acts Lancaster and The Bends.

Though the songs weren't composed with that in mind, once they were all recorded it became apparent that there was a story of love, loss, youth, and angst for the future that was waiting to be told.

Concerning the latter, he discussed the motivation behind the song "Dance Hall Drug": So many kids are growing up too fast.

The CD came with enhanced content which consisted of a photo gallery, videos of the group's AOL Sessions performance, as well as live footage of "Heels Over Head" and "The Great Escape".

The CD features new mixes of "Hero/Heroine" and "Heels Over Head", done by Tom Lord-Alge, and an acoustic version of "Hero/Heroine" as bonus tracks.

Corey Apar from AllMusic commended the band's musical abilities under the emo pop-rock subgenre but felt they lacked a unique quirk to separate them from similar acts that have "the overwhelming catchiness of the All-American Rejects or the unbridled enthusiasm of the City Drive."

"[21] IGN's Chad Grischow highlighted the band's penchant for "solid vocals and pop sensibilities ("The Great Escape, "Heels Over Head")" and gave note of their credentials in the emo genre ("Broken Man", "Dance Hall Drug"), but found the rest of the album sounding too similar to Jimmy Eat World and The Postal Service, along with an overabundance of sappy lyrics sung with auto-effected vocals, concluding that: "Boys Like Girls are not a groundbreaking band by any means, but despite the occasionally heavy-handed borrowings and lazy lyrics, there are enough glimpses of promise within their debut to make it worth checking out.