THIS BOOK WAS EVERYTHING. I’ve read a lot of this author’s work under the pen name Olivie Blake and I was so excited to she what she did in the YA genre! I was not dissapointed. This book was so cute. It included so many of my favorite things: dual POVs, academic rivals to lovers, and women in STEM. I enjoyed every part of this book, especially the pacing. It was one of the few books where I did not lose any interest in the beginning of the novel. I love Teo and Bel and definitely recommend this book!

*3.5 stars rounded up
All hail Olivie Blake/Alexene Farol Follmuth, queen of every genre!
When I read about a STEM romance with a bit of rivals to lovers, I NEEDED it. The first thing oI’ll say is how accurate the High School Experience TM is. We have stress! We have procrastination! We have texts with no capital letters! We have people who can’t use CAD programs! (Me and Bel) In all seriousness, I really loved this book. It’s HORRIBLE for escapism if you’re a high school student (flashbacks to my CAD course last year that made me cry a dozen times), but it can be really fun anyways.
I really loved all of the characters, but I do have a bone to pick. While there were some women in STEM friendships later on, I really don’t like it when women are pitted against each other. I do think that was the point with Bel and Neelam, but it bothered me that Neelam would talk about serious issues and people would label her as a bitch or even that she would actually act cruelly and not see an issue with it at all! This brings me to my problem with the romance too, I absolutely love Teo and Bel, but I think they made valid, negative points about each other that weren’t resolved terribly well. Teo genuinely is controlling, and although he does have hidden depths, he is rich and thinks many things are catered specifically towards him. Meanwhile, Bel may be driven, but she doesn’t make any sort of relevant plans. While the stress is understandable, Neelam is right in a few instances: she expects things to go right because they have before and then doesn’t put enough effort into trying to help things along. These things definitely didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the book, but I didn’t love it.
The romance up until these grievances were aired and subsequently ignored was actually great. There was a logical and natural progression of the relationship between Teo and Bel. They were similar in some ways and completely different in others, and they really did complement each other well. I had even more problems with some of the outside characters than these two, so they were the eye in the storm of people who bothered me (people who were meant to bother me though, not badly WRITTEN characters).
I had no problems with the plot at all. I actually really liked it; eventually the characters progressed a lot and managed to make changes and be better. Bel really applies herself and I was really proud.
I wouldn’t say this is a perfect book by any means, but I really enjoyed it. I’d recommend this book to STEM fans who want fun and great characters, just not people trying to decide on colleges! This was a really fun experience and I read it in a few hours!

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.