Thank you NetGalley, Holiday House, and Alexene Farol Follmuth, aka Olivie Blake, for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review! I truly didn’t expect to love this book as much as I did, but I’m so happy about it. It reminded me of the best parts of high school and falling in love.

This is a great young adult romantic comedy. It reminds me of The Love Hypothesis for a couple of reasons, namely the writing, relationship, and focus on STEM, and I have a feeling people who loved that novel will like this one as well! I read it in one sitting and couldn’t put it down. It’s a short book, less than 300 pages, but it’s still so meaningful and fun. This book follows Bel, our main character, as she joins her school’s robotics team. There she meets Mateo - aka Teo - who quickly became one of my favorite love interests because of how much he cares about Bel and is proud of her.

This book reminded me a lot of high school and my time on our academic challenge team. It was always so fun going to competitions and being on the bus with all of my friends and this book perfectly encapsulates all of those feelings. I also thought that all of the characters were realistic, especially in terms of teenagers today, and likable. Bel is a great character and I related to her a lot while reading, especially when it talked about how she never really knew what she wanted to do with her future because girls are typically expected to like and do certain things. And, as I mentioned earlier, Teo is one of the sweetest characters and I loved him! Their relationship was so perfect and I loved witnessing the struggles they went through because they were realistic and were solved in productive ways. The side characters are also great as well.

This book is well-written and I laughed out loud a couple times while reading! I was truly immersed in the story and highly recommend it. The only warning I have is that there’s a good bit of technical talk regarding the robots and science, which I didn’t understand, but people who are interested in these things would really love it. The book does a good job of explaining everything though and I learned some new things.

If you want a sweet and entertaining young adult read, this is the book for you! I love the current trend of STEM related books and I hope to read more of them in the future :)

OH MY GOD???? this book was genuinely the best thing!!! i loved reading about bel and teo and i loved the fact that the book highlighted women in stem, especially woc in stem. can't wait till this book is out for everyone to read !!! 4/5 stars

Lovely book!! I adored all that characters and the development was great throughout. Kept me wanting more. I would definitely recommend! Really fun light read.

Follmuth has written the most delightful YA Romance. I loved reading about the Women in STEM rep, and while Ive never been in robotics, this book has me very intrigued about it. It's one that I'll definitely recommend to others! I also really appreciated that there was no shame around her choice to go to community college.

As far as tropes are concerned, academic rivals to lovers is the best. There's a reason they are the most prominent in YA contemporary rather than adult contemporary and I think in part, it has to do with the academic setting (whereas the adult counterpart would be workplace rivals to lovers) and how when you're coming of age, the stakes appear to be so much higher. Bel's reluctance and hesitancy to think of the future is something a lot of young adults can relate to. The future is scary and I like how instead of the "gunner" characters that are usually the protagonist of an academic rivals story, the author decided to go about it in a different way. It was refreshing and definitely made this book stand out. My Mechanical Romance's exploration of being a woman in a male-dominated sphere is reminiscent of Michelle Quach's Not Here to Be Liked in the best way. There's something so sincere and tender about witnessing first love and this book was such a pleasure to read. Definitely recommend this book and it is definitely one of the cutest YA contemporaries I've ever read.

This book was pure and very cute :) Firstly, I loved Jamie and Dash; they made great side characters and definitely added some humor.
Teo and Bel's buildup and romance was slow but steady and I enjoyed their progression from strangers to partners to friends. Their humor was adorable as well (Bel's individuality and style was really representative of teens nowadays too IMO).
I love me a good angsty Hero although I wish I got a little more back-and-forth with them + flirting (but I know this is set in high school and navigating a first relationship can be awkward and confusing!) In addition, I like how this wasn't just focused on the romance between the two main characters. We had Bel's college application process and her STEM journey which I think will be great for young readers. I also really appreciated her indecision about college and career because its extremely common (coming from someone who just started college) to have no idea what you want to do, especially when everyone around you seems to have their minds made up.
One of my favorite parts of this book was the emphasis on WISTEM and the obstacles we have to face just to be acknowledged or listened to. Bel's 'spiciness' was definitely appreciated and I liked how she didn't just let Teo or Dash stand up for her, she did it herself!!! I think there are some great lessons to learn from this, and it kind of reminds me of Ali Hazelwood's book about WISTEM which I adore.
I was so happy to see this was a dual POV as well because I'm extremely partial to those :)