Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was a super cute romance, and I could definitely feel the connection between the two main characters. I really liked the fact that it was dual POV, so we got to see the feelings of both Bel and Teo. I really liked how this book showed the challenges of what it is like to be a women of color in STEM. I thought that the author did a really good job of combining the plot of Bel being new to the school and being on the robotics team with the romance plot. I also enjoyed seeing the relationships that both Teo and Bel had with their families. I also loved the different personalities of the side characters, and seeing their relationships with Teo and Bel as well. Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot and would definitely recommend it, especially for people who love STEM, physics, and robotics. I am looking forward to reading more books by Alexene Farol Follmuth in the future!

Rating: 4.25/5 stars
Content warnings: sexism/misogyny, cheating (mentioned), divorced/separated parents, racism and cultural appropriation

I will admit. I took time to read this. I had to. I really truly had to take time because this was seeing hard to read at first. It wouldn't interest me, it felt slow, it felt a little too descriptive, but I kept going.

And then, it happened.

I got my first giggle, my first relatable thought and my new love for a new character started to blossom.

Bel, fun, relatable, a determined FMC who faces a lot of challenges women today faced and continue to face. Shes a sweetheart, an aamzing character with duch in depth mindsets and personality traits that she reminds me of people i know.. I appreciate her for her and that only grows once I meet Luna.
Teo Luna, captain of the robotics team, a guy who sees Bel for all her personality, skills, brains and well, a very nice person overall. Who wouldn't love someone like that in their life?

A book that highlights some of the challenges women and WOC face, a book dedicated to STEM careers (we love that) and love, friendhsips, hardships, misunderstanding, pain, life on a whole.

I hadn't read a YA in such a long time and that may have been why I was uninterested at first but I will end this to say, I don't see why you wouldn't recommend this as a read.

Happy Release Day MMR!

First of all, thank you to NetGalley and Holiday House for an ARC of this wonderful book.

This book was a fantastic read. I (Green) was a little hesitant to begin because I tend to stray away from YA but once I picked it up, it was really hard to put down.

On the surface, My Mechanical Romance is about a girl who's trying to find out what she wants to do with her life. But when you look deeper, this book explores a lot of the stressors that teens experience: the pressure of planning their futures, navigating family relationships and friendships, balancing school and their social lives, exploring their passions and recognizing their self-worth.

I loved Bel's character. She's absolutely hilarious and witty. Though, her journey did unlock some major Asian parent trauma. All jokes aside, I loved how feelings of guilt and responsibility were navigated in this book.

This book was also about women in STEM. This book presented a young girl's STEM experience in a really nuanced way, especially Bel's relationship with her other female team members.

Overall, this was a really enjoyable read and one I would definitely recommend!

I was sent an eARC of this book for an honest review.

Bel needs to start thinking about her future, but she could not be less interested.
Until she shows her penchant for design and engineering and is forced to join the robotics team.
With all the boys not taking her seriously and the only other girl on the team seems to not like her at all.

Until Teo Luna, captain of the robotics team, sees Bel for all her quirks, skill and intelligence.

This book was amazing - dealing with challenges women and women of colour face in STEM, separated parents, making friendships, the future, and first love.

Everything a YA novel needs with the added element of robots!
It was so enjoyable, cute and absolutely feel good.

I loved this book SO much! It was so stinkin’ cute. I loved how this was so empowering for girls in STEM but didn’t over do it. The tropes (enemies to lovers, grumpy/sunshine) were so well done. Bel is so funny and a very relatable character. I related to her not knowing what she wants to do, being quiet and not speaking what’s on her mind even though she knows she’s right. The banter was amazing in this book! Bel and Teo are adorable and help each other be better.
I loved how it was for the most part realistic, which can sometimes be a problem in YA stories. With this one, nothing was so ridiculous that it took me out of the story; the conflict made sense.
The ending was super satisfying and I can’t wait to reread this book!

*My thanks to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for the review copy*

*4.5 stars*

As someone who rarely reads contemporary and is often bored to death by rom-coms, I’m surprised that I love this book a lot! It’s well worth the hype!
My Mechanical Romance is rich in content. It’s about getting accepted in a boy-dominant field, making mistakes, and emphasizing with others. It’s about girl power and family issues and self-discovery. Although it’s obviously a rom-com, what I love the most about it isn’t the romance. I love how relatable and realistic Bel’s story is. Her indecision about applying for college reminds me a lot of my own application, of how afraid and stressful I was to make a decision so big when I didn’t even seem to know myself very well. Bel’s story touches my heart in the deepest way possible. Her growth throughout the book gives me so much strength that I wish I could have read this when I was a teen and was most struggling with self-identity.

This book is by no means too serious, though! It’s humorous and fun and light-hearted. The relationship between Bel and Teo is so cute that they just made me smile every time. I also appreciate the steadily paced build-up before their happy ending. Though sometimes the romance could be a bit cheesy, their banter is well-done and entertaining. I love how they bring the best out of each other and grow stronger together.

The plot is well written with excitement interlaced throughout. One of the reasons I usually don’t enjoy rom-com is the lack of adventures. My Mechanical Romance satisfies my thirst for excitement with robot combats. I’ve never seen robot combats in person but after reading this book, I really want to attend one, and maybe try robotics myself! The ending didn’t turn out as I expected but I love it even more because of it!

The only small complaint is that some scenes could be more detailed. Some important events were skipped with just a few descriptions. I wish we get to see these scenes in full. The pacing is not bad though. The book progresses smoothly and I couldn’t put it down.

My Mechanical Romance is definitely my new favorite this year. I would recommend it to teens out there who are uncertain about their future, as well as all girls and women. You’ll be impressed and inspired by these nerdy girl engineers.

*I was provided with an eARC by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!*

Earlier this year, I thought that I was slowly moving away from enjoying YA books, but My Mechanical Romance has enchanted me and brought be back into the fold! It was such a lovely, fast-paced and delightful read, I basically had to hold myself back from reading it through the night (and if I hadn’t had some other responsibilities the next day, I probably really just would have torn through it in one sitting).

While there’s always something great to say about a well executed teen romance, which this definitely is, I loved that it wasn’t the entire focus of the book. Yes, we had a bit of a rival phase that slowly (almost agonizingly) developed into something genuine and sweet, but we also had so much more.
Alexene Farol Follmuth managed to capture the intricacies of a teen at the brink of finishing school. There’s so many expectations from family, friends and teachers to know exactly what you’re going to do with your life. And in all honesty, some kids do know what they want, but it’s also okay to need time to figure it out. Life is long and full of surprises and sometimes it puts you on unexpected paths. But there’s not just pressure to get into the right school or to keep grades up, but there can be so many more contributing factors to make that time extra stressful. Sometimes it’s a crumbling family life, other times it’s the world being misogynistic or racist – paired with a blossoming first love, it’s bound to cause emotional chaos! I think the balance was handled so well in this book.

THE CHARACTERS
There’s a very clear focus on Bel and Teo, who each have POV chapters of their own. They couldn’t be more different at first glance, but sort of complete each other in the cutest way. Seeing their relationship spark and grow was such a joy.
Sometimes I did wish we had learned some more about certain side characters (like Neelam for example), but I understood people’s motivations overall and felt like they were all three dimensional characters. I can say that, because Dash is literally my favorite supportive foodie chaos character in the whole entire story. I also really liked that the parents were included in the story and even if they weren’t always 100% present, there was a reason for that too.

THE WRITING
I really have to give Alexene Farol Follmuth credit for writing such authentic, quirky and fun dialogue. It’s what propels this story forward and keeps you invested and engaged throughout. If you like dialogue and inner monologues more than lengthy descriptions of surroundings and looks, this really is the book for you.

In addition to that, there was also a lot of use of text messages, which I think fits the vibe but also the age group really well. Let’s face it, I mostly communicate through text with people and I’m not even a teen anymore. I can’t really picture anyone calling anyone else all the time anymore …

VERDICT
I was one of the only girls in my mathletics team and I still remember clearly how surprised some people were that I was good at math, physics and chemistry. I was also really decent, although not patient enough, in shop class, having inherited some skills from my mom (who is the handy one when it comes to my parents). My school did not have a robotics team, but it’s definitely something I could have seen myself doing. I wasn’t really the type to participate in a lot of clubs and yet, Bel’s experience spoke to me. As I said earlier, My Mechanical Romance wasn’t just a fun and quirky romance, it was also heavily focused on girls in STEM and finding something you’re passionate about despite all the pressure and discouraging voices. I really hope this brings people joy and the knowledge that they can try anything they want, no matter what other’s say, and be successful, if they put in the work.

Fazit: 4/5 stars! Such a lovely book!

My Mechanical Romance was one of my favourite books of this year! It exceeded my expectations. I was super excited to read this book when I received the arc!
This book follows two main characters Bel Maier and Mateo Luna. These two are very different in many ways but work together for the robotics club.
There are many things that I enjoyed while reading this book. I loved Bel and Mateo so much. Mateo always tries to be the best and puts a lot of pressure on himself, taking the lead. While Bel likes to stay in the background and does not care much about extracurriculars. I love how Bel expresses herself through her clothing and does not care what others think and Mateo cares too much what others think. Despite these differences, they make a great team even if they do not want to admit it at first and help each other out. These two made this book so enjoyable to read.
Another thing I loved was the representation of women in STEM. Bel is not experienced in the stem field but she is very skilled. However, the team often dismisses her ideas because she is a woman. There was another woman on the team Neelam who I loved. Though she can be blunt, she knew she was good at her job and never needed approval from anyone.
There were other side characters who I adored especially Ms. Voss who encourages Bel to follow her dreams and everyone needs a teacher like that!
The romance was also amazing! Bel and Mateo do not start great but eventually as they spend time together they learn about each other and understand their differences. It was a realistic depiction of a relationship.
This book comes out today so I 100% recommend this! If you like women in STEM, lovable main characters, academic rivals to lovers, or Taylor Swift then you should read this book!

I absolutely loved this one! Enemies to lovers STEM edition? It was a little slow to start but then I could not put it down. Overall highly recommend

This book was so refreshing! It was a great representation of women and STEM and how overlooked and undermined they are by their male counterparts. Although Bel was occasionally frustrating, it was nice to see her overcome her struggles of living up to everyone’s expectations of her. Teo’s internal struggle with balancing school and life was also something I deeply related to. The romance between Bel and Teo had a very sweet start however their third act conflict seemed a little over dramatic to me. I always love a good enemies to lovers trope. This book is the perfect light read to get you out of a reading slump!

I was immediately drawn to this book on NetGalley because of the witty wordplay in the title. Bel Maier does not have her life together. Having recently moved to an elite, private school where STEM is celebrated, she feels like a fish out of water. When her teacher spots potential, she encourages Bel to try out for the robotics team. Teo Luna is the captain of the robotics team and the football team. The son of a tech millionaire, he's the school superstar. Like Bel's teacher, he spots the same potential. But Teo isn't used to being questioned. So when Bel comes with new ideas, sparks fly.

I was an avid fan of Robot Wars in the 90s, so I could vividly picture every design and flaw of the robots. The battles were thrilling to read. I loved how both characters were dealing with family issues and the weight of expectations. I particularly enjoyed the focus on women in STEM. The challenges they have to overcome before they even get to start being taken seriously was written sensitively and realistically. There are so many layers to this story. Young adults from different backgrounds, but both with near suffocating pressure thrust upon them by their respective parents and the anxiety that comes from having to map out your life at such a young age. I loved the diversity in the characterisation, and the supporting characters were all fully fleshed out (I particularly loved Dash and Jamie. It also addresses imperfect parents and the struggles children face after a divorce.

While it took a little while to get to the romance (this is an Enemies-to-Friends-to-Lovers slow-burn romance), I was totally invested from the beginning. When we finally get to the romance, it felt earned. I loved the banter, awkwardness, and how adorable both Teo and Bel are together. And that first kiss? Swoon-worthy. The inevitable conflict feels considered and isn't shoehorned in just for the drama.

This was a brilliant YA romance with a thoroughly satisfying (and life-affirming) ending. Highly Recommended.


Overall Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Heat Rating:
Emotional Rating: 🥰😂🤬😢🥰😍

*Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to leave an honest review*

(I will add the same review to Amazon UK on publication day - here it says 23rd June)

This book was the CUTEST. After The Love Hypothesis I have been devouring all things enemies/friends to lovers in STEM and this book just satiated my thirst.

Enemies(ish) to lovers - CHECK
STEM - Check
Robots - Didn’t even know I needed this but CHECK!

This book brought back my love for YA Contemporary Romance. I loved quirky and nerdy Isabel who despite being the new transfer student quickly made a name for herself. And our MMC golden child workaholic won me over with his witty banter with our girl Bel. I’m usually drawn more to the smutty side of Romance but I adored this palate cleanser which is definitely middle grade friendly.

If you’re looking for a cute, clean, quirky and feminist friendly romance then this is the book for you!

This was an exceedingly charming book. I'm already a professed lover of Follmuth's (and her other pen name, Olivie Blake's) writing and it was so fun to see what she could do with the YA genre. I'm always worried when I start a contemporary YA book set in high school since I am pretty far removed from AP tests and college applications. However, both Teo and Bel are going through a lot of universal feelings that I immediately understood and related to.

Bel has just moved schools after her parents separated and starting a new high school her senior year is quite the adjustment. A well-meaning teacher sees potential in her and suggests she joins AP Physics as well as the school's robotics team where she meets Teo, the wealthy son of a fancy technology CEO who seemingly has everything, including an acceptance to MIT.

Bel and Teo immediately connect and their romance was my favorite part of the book. Bel discovering her love of engineering and robotics was so lovely and her journey to figuring out what she wants to do I think will relate to a lot of people, young and old. Teo's growth in this book was a little more subtle but his desire to fix everyone and his feelings of inadequacy were a gut punch. I also loved all of their friends and robotics teammates and Follmuth does some really interesting things with friendship and what exactly it means to be a girl on a robotics team. As Bel realizes she is not only good at this but she likes it, she encounters the gatekeeping and microaggressions that come from being a woman wanting to do anything in STEM.

Follmuth's writing is snappy and clever and felt like how kids speak. The acknowledgment section of her book made me cry and I hope that this book finds all the readers who need it.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

First of all I would like to say I liked the concept of the book. It’s very different to the usual young adult subjects. The story is about Bell and Teo. Bell joins the robotics team where Teo is a part of. I personal thinks it’s a kinda slowburn with the enemies to lovers trope.

It took quite a while till I enjoyed the story. It was really slow for me and I thought of DNF’ing it. Later on i start enjoying the story and the characters. I found them likeable and a cute couple but I missed the spark.

Because I wasn’t hooked with it from the beginning but I still enjoyed it at the end, I give this book 3 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Holiday House Books for the eARC!

If there’s one book you should read this year, this is it. I love this book. It’s definitely one of my favourites this year, possibly ever. My Mechanical Romance has everything I possibly could have wanted in a book; dual POV, girls in STEM, a diverse cast, and characters that fail sometimes, and quite badly. Once I picked this book up, I could barely put it down. Obviously, it was a five-star read without hesitation, and that’s a rating I don’t usually give to romance novels.

My Mechanical Romance is the story of Bel Maier as her talents for robotics and doing her homework the day it's due lands her in an advanced physics class and gets her a place on the school robotics team. She’s not particularly happy with either of those events, which is understandable considering the less than warm reception from some of the other robotics team members. However, over the course of the book, she finds her place and her natural talents begin to shine as the team prepares for the biggest robotics competition of the year.

I have so many good things to say about this book that I almost don’t know where to start, but that doesn’t help convince people that they should read the book (you really should, by the way). I loved this book so much I basically forgot to make notes because I was so focused on finding out what was on the next page and what was going to happen.

Bel and Teo are so cute. I love how they worked together as rivals and when they didn’t see eye to eye, and then still competed with each other after they were together. They talked to each other about the problems they were having, and they worked so well as a team! Also, how could I not ship them after reading the line ‘Because wherever I am, I want her close by’? It would be literally impossible. Spoiler time, even when they broke up, they still cared about each other and believed in each other.

Now, time for even more spoilers because I want to talk about everything that happened in this book to whoever will listen.

The problems the characters face in this book seem so real. Neelam talking about how women in STEM aren’t taken seriously and have to work so much harder to prove themselves made me tear up a little bit more than I want to admit, and Neelam and Bel crushing Richardson and his bot after the comments he made was phenomenal. I’m so glad Neelam and Bel became friends towards the end of the book after their rocky beginning.

Even the breakup felt realistic. The pressure on Bel to get into MIT was building, from Teo telling his father about Bel getting in, to Neelam telling her that she shouldn’t expect to get in just because she can build a good robot. There was even a conversation about how incredibly hard it is to get into a super prestigious college if you don’t have the right start in life, and how unfair it is to expect people to compete with someone with all the benefits in the world.

I love how Bel goes from having, like, zero goals beyond high school and avoids doing homework and assignments until the last possible minute, only to win a robotics competition and have a college seek her out specifically because she’s so good at what she does. I love that Bel didn’t get into MIT when she applied with Teo, and I love that her plans didn’t work out exactly as she wanted them to. Despite the fact that I was devastated for Bel, it was a nice reminder that happy endings don’t need to be exactly as you envision them.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, read this book. You won’t regret it at all. This book alone makes me want to auto-buy anything and everything Alexene Farol Follmuth writes. I gave it a five-star rating, and it’s the reason I made a 2022 Favourite Books list. Read My Mechanical Romance.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Holiday House, for providing me with an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Olivie Blake’s YA debut under Alexene Farol Follmuth is a wholesome read. I feel incredibly lucky that I got approved to read this book as I’m dying to get my hands on Olivie/Alexene’s other books!

Can we talk about how cute the pun in the title is?
My Mechanical Romance is, you guessed it, a contemporary YA romance novel that follows Bel, the new girl with no defined goals that has a knack for designing and building things and Teo, straight A student and son of a tech giant CEO who’s aiming for MIT. The book also heavily touched on topics like discrimination against girls and women pursuing STEM fields and how girls who are fed up with disparity are villainized.

With extremely lovable characters, the funniest interactions and the most adorable scenes Alexene Farol Follmuth crafted a heartfelt book that was hard to put down!

As a woman in STEM, particularly computer engineering, I found some of the struggles of the girls in this book relatable, especially since I dabbled in robotics in school and university myself. This is one of the YA books that I wish I could go back in time and give to my younger self.

I know I was not exactly the target audience, yet I couldn’t help but cringe just a *little* at some of the dialogue especially with Bel misusing the word “heteronormativity” a few times which could be unintentional, but it’s also so an accurate portrayal of kids nowadays who latch onto and misuse terms they don’t have a full understanding of which I honestly found funny. The pacing in a few parts of this book wasn’t up to par but that didn’t ruin my experience of reading the book either.

A cute YA romance that gave exactly what I was expecting it to. It wont be going on my top reads of the year by any means but I did enjoy it a reasonable amount. I thought the two main characters were cute and fun but all of the supporting characters were very one dimensional and boring. I felt as though each of them just had their one 'thing' that the author stuck with and didn't give them much more of a personality other than that. I'm also not sure that I would consider the book to be dealing with the issues that POC women deal with in STEM as it seemed to be such a minor scene of the entire novel where it was discussed at all.

3/5 stars. Thank you to NetGalley and the author for this copy to review.

We have enemies-to-lovers. We have women (of colour) in STEM. We have robots. We have nerdy romance. What's not to love?

When I found out I had been approved for this ARC, I was ecstatic. I had seen this book been mentioned by a few people I follow on 'bookstagram' and I just knew I had to read it. It seemed quirky and nerdy and like it was going to be fun. It turned out to be all of those things and more.

Bel is a strange character, but I have always loved the strange ones. She doesn't have her life after high school planned out. She doesn't know what college she wants to apply to. She says the most random things most of the time, and she sort of just lets life happen to her.

Teo is the complete opposite. He has his life planned out. He is gong to MIT. He's captain of the soccer team and the robotics team (and pretty much everything else in life). Everyone looks to him because he's the dependable one. But, really, he's just doing his best to be what he thinks everyone needs him to be.

The only thing they really have in common is that they are both super smart and end up loving robotics.

One thing I was sceptical about was the YA factor of the book. I'm really not a YA fan in general, so I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed this (However, I will always prefer it if a book is more NA/Adult). Neelam and Ms. Voss were really important characters in the end as they both represented women's struggles in STEM and helped motivate Bel.

The toxic masculinity was infuriating but without it the book wouldn't have been a true representation of that field, and the world in general.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for this free ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I've always thought that some books find you when they are meant to. I really thought this was going to be the book that would let me tell myself I HAVE NOT outgrown YA. I was... wrong.
I tried really really hard to get into this, especially in the beginning, but about 60% in, I just couldn't? I mean, I feel like I've read this exact same plot before? I don't know. I could definitely guess the ending (which is fine, by the way!)
You don't need to believe me, obviously- I think if I were younger or in a different mental space, I would have enjoyed the hell out of this as well!

Before I begin, I want to thank NetGalley, Holiday House Publishing, and Alexene Farol Follmuth for an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Where do I even start with this book? I absolutely loved this book from start to finish. I have to admit, I was a little hesitant going into it, just because it wasn't my typical kind of read, but I was pleasantly surprised when I began reading.

This book follows Bel, a senior in high school, as she transfers schools in her final year of school and is prompted by one of her teachers to recognize her skill in robotics. I found myself relating so closely to Bel, being in my final years of high school and fearing what comes after. Bel was such a dynamic character that was the kind of relatable I absolutely adore. She isn't "normal" in any way which is one of the things that I love the most about her. She never fit into exactly one box. Bel had so much depth as a character and even taught me some things about myself I didn't know. I loved seeing female representation in STEM and the realistic portrayal of the challenges that are faced by women in STEM.
Now to start on Mateo. Mateo Luna was such a well written character that continued to surprise me throughout the book. Much like Bel, he brought more to the surface than what originally meets the eye and I appreciated the depth of his character. Both Mateo and Bel portrayed what I think so many high schoolers relate to as they get closer to graduation and begin looking towards the future. I especially loved the contrast of their two characters together because it showed that there's no right way to go about planning your future. Mateo had things all planned out and it worked out great for him, he put in the work and he made it into his dream school. But this book also showed that you don't always have to have everything figured out in advance for things to work out just fine. Bel had no idea what she was going to do after graduation and didn't get accepted to the only school that she applied to. However, Bel was no less successful or happy in her life and I loved seeing that.

I loved the plot line of this book and how well it flowed. It keeps the reader engaged and makes it impossible to put down. I also loved the depth that this novel reached. I will admit that I was skeptical when I realized that it was a high school romance but the level of depth that was present in this novel made it perfect. It was a well rounded novel with just the right amounts of feel good and depth. For a high school romance it wasn't predictable, it gave me a fresh new perspective, and absolutely made me fall in love with the characters.

Overall this book was absolutely adorable. The dynamic characters and representation gave it a depth that pulls on your heart strings and makes it relatable. The plot was well thought out and keeps the reader hooked from the beginning. The romance was to die for and perfect in every way. Bel and Teo have my whole heart and I wouldn't have it any other way. This novel is an amazing read and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a romcom with a solid plot and depth.