I loved it! I was super gleeful reading it the entire time. I just wish there was a little more romance is all. Otherwise it's a great YA

Almost DNF’d this one. I skimmed through most of it.

Things I liked: women in STEM

Things I didn’t like: basically everything else

No part of this story gripped my attention. I was not at all invested in the characters. Two & Bel’s relationship was immature and very meh.

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc!

4.5 stars, rounded up

this book was so cute! I wasn’t expecting to like it this much, but it was a really good, quick ya contemporary romance :)

my mechanical romance follows Bel through her senior year at her new high school after her physics teacher gets her to join AP physics, along with the robotics club. all of the characters were great and extremely likable, and I absolutely loved the friendship dynamics in this book! Jamie and Lora were great, and I loved Dash. Bel was an amazing and relatable protagonist, and I could definitely relate to her on multiple points (yay for not knowing what to do with your future!). I loved Bel and Teo’s relationship, I thought they were adorable! their relationship was realistic, and I enjoyed watching them grow together. all of the characters developed really well throughout the book, and it was really great to read.

the book was really well written, and I really liked the narration style. it seemed very casual/conversational, and I really enjoyed it! the text conversations throughout the book were really fun too, and I definitely laughed out loud a few times (a real laugh, not even just the nose exhale). the plot was interesting and really fast-paced; I never found myself wanting it to speed up, and it never got boring. I also really loved the tropes in the book! the academic rivals to lovers was written very well, and it was over all really enjoyable :)

This was a cute little YA STEM romance. Lots of little moments that definitely make you smile or even reminisce about high school for those of who are long since graduated.

The ending was a little rushed and I thought some of the issues of women in STEM could’ve been given greater attention. It seemed like an afterthought at times, especially when there were opportunities to highlight Neelam’s struggle more. But if you’re not looking for your book to make a huge, mind blowing statement and just want an enjoyable romance…really well-written.

The banter was so great and I think the pressures of “gifted kids” in school were really highlighted. Especially when discussions about prep for college were in the plot.

Honestly said? I expected more from this novel.
The premise was great, sexy nerds, college romance, hate to love, rivalry...in short, I was picturing fire and brimstone in my mind.

The novel itself is cute and flowing, but it's not all that great. I managed to get to the end by inertia, I know that's not a nice thing to say, but aihme it's my personal opinion.
The story is flat, as are the main characters. Zero involvement, zero pathos. I'm not going to tell you the synopsis here, the novel is very short, it doesn't have any twists or who knows what. It's a flat book and that's it.
If you are looking for a smooth flowing book without much pretension, then My Mechanical romance is for you but not for me.

This was such a fun read! Super cute young romance that will keep you entertained. Likable characters although I didn't really care for Neelam. I didn't really understand all the technical terms used when building their robots etc so I skimmed a bit those parts of the story. Still a great read! Definitely recommend!

Brilliant title, gorgeous cover … and an authentic, inspiring STEM high school romance. This book really won the amazing-book-bingo!

We follow Bel, who has only recently changed schools and is pushed by her teacher to join the robotics team. Her parents are divorcing and we see how it impacts Bel and her relationship to her family. Bel feels a little aimless, like she hasn’t quite figured her life out just yet and is faced by all these big decisions a teenager has to make before graduating. She soon meets Teo, who is the captain of the robotics team. He takes things a little too serious and is overall just trying his best: pleasing his parents, as the captain to the robotics and the soccer team, in school and in trying to get into MIT.

Both of them were great characters with a lot of depth and interesting stories. Not quite knowing what you want to do in life and the (self-imposed) pressure to achieve success were to highly relatable storylines. I really liked how they were developed throughout the story, with Bel’s story being overall really refreshing and inspiring (it might feel like you’ve got to have it all figured out at eighteen but damn if you can’t change your path in life … and then change it again and again).

This book felt like deeply authentic to the teenage experience, the way the characters acted, their thoughts and struggles felt like being thrown back to my teenage self in the best of ways. This authenticity does not, however, make the book feel childish or unrelatable to older audiences.

Teo and Bel also had a very cute romance. This was also where the aforementioned teenage authenticity shines for me especially, they had all of the fast crush, complicated feelings and awkward dancing around each other teenage-vibes I feel like many of us experienced that age.

I loved the entirety of the plot centered around women/girls in STEM. It was subtle enough to not beat you over the head with the struggles and roadblocks women are facing when entering the field and the author also managed to weave characters coming to a position of understanding about this in a natural way. I liked that it was portrayed as a little messy and how the female characters as well need time and perspective to see the problems and find ways of dealing with them. (I loved loved loved Ms. Voss, the female teacher who pushed Bel to join the robotics team, and hope that every young girl finds her own Ms. Voss as a guiding adult in their life. We really need more teachers like her!)

Robotics and romance, two things that we haven’t seen go together very often. But in this book, they are melded seamlessly together to form a fast-paced, engaging read that explores the struggle women in STEM face and the trials and tribulations of teenage romance. The pacing is a little fast at some points but it definitely doesn’t detract from the story, and the characters are so likeable you just want to know what happens next!

Enemies to lovers in STEM, say no more! This was a sharp, witty, academic rivals to lovers, love story. Not only was this book well written but it was funny/witty. It takes a lot to make me laugh out loud and I did a few times. WOC in STEM is so important and i thought this was a very sweet portrayal.

This book was so cute. Its very fitting for todays tech age.
The pacing was a little slower than i would have liked but overall there was great character development and progression individually.

Full review will be up closer to release week either on pop-culturalist.com or on my bookstagram account @meetcuteromancebooks! I loved the banter and the romance in this.

I DEVOURED THIS BOOK IN ONE SITTING AND I HAVE NOT STOPPED SCREAMING ABOUT THIS BOOK! As a sucker for romance + academic trope, I thoroughly enjoyed flying through pages of My Mechanical Romance. Something about the book was so realistic and relatable, and the characters have resonated with me quite well.

This book follows the story of Bel and Teo as they navigate their way into senior year. Bel, a new student who her Physics teacher discovered to have immense potential in the engineering field, was forced to join the school robotics team, where she met Teo, the captain of the robotics team, and their football team. Starting as rivals, their relationship soon evolves into friends, followed by more than friends.

Bel and Teo were perfect for each other! Bel, who has not figured out her path after high school + Teo, an ultimate genius who has set his future in stone, indeed they complete each other. They needed each other to balance themselves out. I also love how their relationship was not written as predictable and cliche; there was something unique about their relationship that I thoroughly enjoyed witnessing.

It is also nice that this book showed representation to women in STEM. Often, it is tougher for women to evolve in engineering because of sexism in society, which really sucks. As a woman, I am familiar with the fact that it is harder to thrive and succeed in our chosen fields because of the underlying sexism. We are just as capable as men, yet why are we the only ones having a hard time? Indeed this is a prominent issue happening globally, and I am glad that it was well-tackled in the book.

I mostly enjoyed all characters! Though there are a few that I hated throughout the book, the character development was evident, and I am glad to witness such character development! Specifically, I was pissed off at Mac as he was being sexist towards Neelam and Bel, but it was evident that he came around throughout the end. I also did not like how the robotics team's attitude towards Neelam and how she acted out easily, but everything turned out the way that it is supposed to be. I also understood her struggles and why she acted the way she did. The characters were realistic, no one is perfect, and as teenagers and students, they may be young and stupid at times. But we see how they grew up towards the end.

Overall, this book was a wholesome read; it was realistic and cute! Indeed, nerds are so hot and more power to the women in STEM! This was well-written and a must-read for all!

Huge thanks to Holiday House and the author for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own

Thanks Netgalley for a arc copy of this book for a honest review

I really don't read YA Romance contemporary
My Mechanical Romance was such a nice read. Bel and Mateo were such a cute couple 5 star read

Happy Reading
Lisa 📚

This book is for all the women in STEM who’ve experienced self-doubt or had to work extra hard to prove themselves. Such a wholesome, heartwarming read about family, perseverance, grit, realizing your true potential, and first love. While this is obviously a love story, as the name suggests, it really didn’t feel like the focal point of the book. With that said, this was such a sweet romance where two characters go from rivals to academic colleagues to lovers and work to build each other up. It didn’t feel toxic in the least (refreshing, am I right?). I don’t know anything about robotics but the science of it all felt well explained with being too much. The tone of the characters is fittingly YA (albeit very bright young adults). Everyone from the main characters to Bel’s family to the students on the robotic’s team were all very well done with so much personality. The book was a bit of a slower pace and took course over an entire school year but I never felt bored. Epilogue was great. Highly recommend if you’re looking for a nerdy STEM YA romance.


Favorite Quotes:

“Sometimes I think I’d rather be forty and wondering where my life went instead of seventeen and relentlessly hounded about my future,” she says. “I can’t wait for my life of quiet desperation so I can finally meditate on all the ways I wasted my precious youth.”

“My room is nothing special—it’s basically the inside of a West Elm catalogue—but hers is like a museum of the inside of her brain.“

“You’re this new color I didn’t know existed and now I see it everywhere and I’m like, thank god I can see it now. Such a bummer if I never did.”

“I get why it matters to me that she’s hurting. Because I think about her all the time. Because she surprises me, because she makes me laugh, and because this, whatever it is with her, is the only thing I ever do that’s easy. Because wherever I am, I want her close by.”

“I should not be wasting my time on high school boys when I was clearly born to be some artist’s muse, which is a calling I will probably age into around my late twenties.”

“You don’t have to make the world perfect just so people will love you.”

Thank you to NetGalley, Holiday House, and Alexene Farol Follmuth for providing me with this advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

As someone who met her current boyfriend of 5 years through a high school robotics team, I felt like I should have a say on this one.

First of all, I think the title is genius.

I did enjoy this book a lot. We need more books like these in the YA section. I wish I had a book like this growing up. Enemies to lovers in STEM is super hot right now. Just like how nerds are hot now. This book was super cute and funny. Both Bel and Teo were quirky and relatable which made it highly entertaining.

My Mechanical Romance was fast-paced and a quick read, which I liked. I think there are a lot of themes and topics in this book that teens may find relatable, like not knowing what they want to do after high school.
The diversity in this book was well-done. I hardly see Filipino characters in novels, so it was a breath of fresh air to see. I am Filipino myself, so a lot of the comments had me laughing out loud. I also felt like many of the other characters, including the love interest, created a highly diverse environment.

There are a few issues I had with this book. The biggest one is the use of brackets. I feel like if all of the brackets were removed, or used sparingly, the novel would be a lot less confusing. I understand that might just be the writing style or the quirkiness of the characters, but it got to the point where it was a little ridiculous. The main problem I had was when using brackets I would be paying attention to a thought, distracted by putting another thought in brackets, and then continuing the first thought afterwards. By the end of the confusion, it's a paragraph-long sentence too.

Some more minor comments I wanted to make were throughout the book the whole “because I’m a girl” theme was taken too literally. It was almost like it was spelling it out for us when it could’ve been done more effectively if it was subtle. But I do think it is powerful and important that the author included themes of sexism in STEM environments throughout the novel. Not just what Bel experiences, but what all the other girls do as well.

Lastly, I think a lot more girls join robotics than you think.

Overall, I give this book 3.5/5 stars. It is a really cute idea, there are just a few tweaks that could’ve made it even better.

My Mechanical Romance was a solid YA romance that, ironically, did a surprisingly great job helping me avoid school-related responsibilities for several hours. It took a while to grow on me—I wasn't that into the first 35%—but I'm glad I kept reading, since I ended up enjoying it a lot. I did think the pacing was a bit off, especially the ending (which wraps up really fast), and I thought Teo was insufferable for the first few scenes he was in; plus, Bel and Teo's relationship wasn't even academic rivals to lovers, so I was completely betrayed on that front. Still, I love that the romance in this wasn't too rushed or melodramatic and that both Bel and Teo (as well as many of the side characters) are really well-developed and relatable in a way that doesn't feel forced. I'm also a huge fan of how the issue of sexism in STEM was tackled in this book; I'm glad that Neelam's initial dislike of Bel wasn't just a one-dimensional kind of jealousy but something more complex that really highlighted how hard it is to be a woman in STEM.

Overall, I'd recommend this for anyone who wants a fun and sweet book that's easy to get through, especially anyone who has some kind of interest in STEM or just wants a quick read with endearing characters. I love a lot of the author's other works and I hope she writes more in this genre, would definitely read it if she does.

Thanks to NetGalley and Holiday House for the eARC!

MY MECHANICAL ROMANCE💗🎮
Author:Alexene Farol Follmuth
Score:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
English Level: B2
Recommended age: +16

"I've always believe that there's a possibility for everything in the world to collide for a single perfect moment, and that sometimes, if you're lucky, you get to have one for yourself."

Thank u to @netgalley and @holidayhousebks for an ARC and my honest opinión of the book🥺💗✨
This book is coming to realease on May 31st.
This is a YA contemporay rivals to lovers romance with Girls in STEM💗🎮
This book reminds me of" The Love Hypothesis "that is on eof my favourite books ever and reading this book make me Love more this TROPE of Girls in STEM but for a young public.
Here we meet Isabell But never call her by her full name, she likes "Bel". She likes to build thing but when she makes a proyect for a class, she reveals a great talent for engineering at school and then she have to join the robotica club. That's when she met Teo Luna the captan of the club and a good soccer player, Who revognizes Bel as a potencial asset-until they start building heads. They have to work on a bot for The Nationals of Robot combat and in the time they pass building it, they've made space for each other and themselves.
I love so much how the author introduces so well the engineering and robotic terms that for me they were easy to understand. Bel is so Real in all the aspects, her personality is so happy and bright but also she is afraid to not be good enough and that other people don't recognize all the effort she put.
In Bel I see all the girls that are afraid of trying all the STEM things because the people told then that it is only for boys and the girls don't do that and they have to be different.
Regardless of the romance history, the most important thing of this book is "follow your dreams"there always be people and oneself that is going to stop our dreams but if it makes you happy, you have to go ahead.That is what I learn of Bel and also have birds in my pants.
TEO LUNA GODDD, I Love him so much! Teo is not that perfect like he seems, and he makes mistakes and that is okay.Teo is the grumpy in this history and also the most kind, beautiful boy.
Outside, teo is very serious and that he is always the best in the team, but being able to see and learn more about what happens in his life was wonderful. Teo grew as a person throughout the book seeing his mistakes and how he could improve and also who he wanted to become.
Bel and Teo's relationship was simply beautiful and how could it not be, if the nerds are very handsome.
At first I thought that this relationship would be very forced but as the book progressed I began to see and notice those details that one contributed to the other. The two are like a puzzle, they are a complete piece on their own but when united they can achieve great things.
It doesn't have +18 scenes but it does make us understand that in an aside from the book but nothing explicit, since it is focused on a younger audience.

The secondary characters as well as the main ones were very good.
The ones I liked the most were Dash, Teo's friend, he was very funny and he is the one who will always make you laugh. Luke, Bel's brother who cared for her and protected her too much, and the nickname he called her, awwww I loved it. And Jamie and Neelma that I would have liked to see more of the two of them and get to
know them better.
That ending ahh I feel like it was the best to end this story but I will miss you very much and I assure you that I will buy the physical book because so far it is my favorite book of the year and I will not tire of recommending it.

This book has💗🎮 :
-Grumpy FMC x Grumpy MMC
-Rivals to Lovers
-Light Academia
-Have to work together
-Dual POV
-Robotic and Mechanical references
-Feminism
-Girls in STEM
-Robotic and Soccer male protagonist
-Taylor Swift references
-Robot fights
-Cute moments

Coming soon - a big thank you to @netgalley and @holidayhousebks for the ARC!

This book wasn’t perfect (the writing could be a bit clunky in places, especially around dialogue, or big changes in time/place) but it was so sweet, and obviously a perfect fit for me and my nerdiness 🤓

While I wish that the girls on the robotics team had been able to do what my friends and I did in middle school (form our own team when the boys wouldn’t let us program, proceed to kick their butts up and down the State tournament), I was glad the story made the characters very three-dimensional and gave them room to grow while still acknowledging implicit biases and how difficult it can be to be in these situations. And that the heroine got the cute boy in the end, but she didn’t need him to save her or anything, they both brought out the best in each other.

It took me a little bit of time to get into the book - there’s a pretty big cast of characters, but it mostly works out. The absolute highlights were the way the author captured the energy of a robotics tournament (the nostalgia I felt reading that! 🥺) and an immensely satisfying ending.

ALSO THAT TITLE! Obsessed 😍

I loved this book!! My Mechanical Romance follows Bel Maier, a senior that isn’t sure what she wants for her future, and Teo Luna, who knows and has been told exactly what his future holds. When Bel gets practically forced into joining the robotics club, Teo, being captain of the club, offers to show her the ropes. What follows is a wholesome STEM based romance, that I personally give 4 stars!

The book follows Bel’s and Teo’s senior year, and the pace of the book keeps things interesting and realistic. Bel is probably an extremely relatable character to many readers her age, as it can be so difficult figuring out what you want or what you can do after high school. Along with that, she is a fun and charming character with all her interests and puns. Teo is a leader in everything he does, the shining yes man who solves anything and makes time for everything. Both characters have their flaws, but are very lovable and really make this book.

An honourable mention as well to all the side characters, I liked them all by the end, including Neelam! After taking AP courses and the traditional sciences in high school, I can understand and imagine her struggles being a young woman in STEM. There were parts of the book that made me so frustrated for both her and Bel’s sake, but they stuck to what they love and I think the book was really inspiring in this way.

Seeing Bel’s friendships developing in the new school was fun to read about, and Bel and Teo connecting over time was very wholesome. The slight rivalry they had made for great banter and teasing, and them getting to know each other in an understanding and comforting way made my heart happy for them. I really recommend this book, especially to readers who love cute romances in an academic setting, rivals to lovers, and anyone into STEM or robotics!

Thank you NetGalley and Holiday House for the eARC!!

Bel's parents are getting a divorce and her mother has taken Bel and her older brother Luke to live in a small apartment on the other side of the city. Her maternal instincts are going overboard and she has enrolled Bel in a snooty private school, very different to the one she has studied at until now. Here everyone is into AP classes and extracurricular work and getting their college applications done, whereas Bel just wants to hang out at the Mall with her friends.

Then a last minute class project brings Bel to the attention of one of the physics teachers who sort of blackmails Bel into trying out for a place on the school's robotics team (literally Robot Wars). This kind of reminded me of when Harry Potter gets spotted as a potential seeker by Professor Mcgonagall. The robotics team is led by the school's all-round high achiever Mateo. The son of a Silicone Valley CEO gazillionaire and a former super model, he is driven to succeed at everything, football, class, robotics etc. he takes the weight of the world on him and feels personally responsible for every failure. Again, this reminded me of an old Buffy episode where a little boy is blamed by his coach for the baseball team losing a match.

Bel doesn't understand the design software the robotics team uses so she sketches out a design on paper for the deceptively simple task set for potential candidates. When Mateo sees the sketch he immediately drafts her into the team, without consulting anyone else. Personalities soon clash, especially when Bel points out that Mateo is super-controlling, he doesn't really listen to anyone else's ideas or tolerate criticism.

There's lots to unpick here: parental expectations; the differences between the haves and have-nots; the impact of divorce on family dynamics; teenage romance; misogyny; robot wars; and more. I also liked the diversity of the characters, although I also have a concern that the characters' diversity was perhaps more about references to ethnic foods and festivals with a few non-English words thrown in for good measure, rather than a faithful representation of different ethnic backgrounds. Then again, it may just be that these are teenagers born and brought up in the US wit US cultural norms sitting alongside their parents and their grandparents' ethnic background.

Anyway, there's teenage angst; romance; drama; and lots and lots of robot wars. Loved it and read it in one day.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.