My Mechanical Romance: An Opposites-attract YA Romance from the Bestselling Author of The Atlas Six

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She does, of course, find her own path after this but I kind of loved the fact we see a YA heroine want something very sincerely, do her best to get it, and still not … get it? The plot was good as well - it was very simple but never slipped into being dull, and I thought the conflict between Bel and Teo and their respective families was worked in quite nicely.

My Mechanical Romance shines a light on the struggles bright young girls face in STEM fields, and combines it with an adorable romance that will leave you warm and smiling long after the last page.

Obviously it’s great when marginalised people can support each other but the automatic assumption that people marginalised within their context are obligated to be instant best buds is … kinda messed up. Thank you to RB Media and NetGalley for providing me with an audio ARC of My Mechanical Romance by Alexene Farol Follmuth in exchange for an honest review. The pacing was a bit slow which just made this book a bit boring and there was too much robot-building talking and mechanical engineering. but romance novels not having any emotional build-up is more of a rule than an exception nowadays so.

Again, this might just be me and my oldness speaking, but I like the way that she is allowed to have natural ability, but that her natural abilities are never allowed to substitute for actual work. I would highly recommend this book for anybody who wants to have a richer STEM lead in their life, or to inspire a young friend/family member that being a nerd is cool and to never be shamed of your interests. There were a ton of characters with all sorts of backgrounds and the author took it a step further and even included different cultural references for the characters.

I really adored this book and only took off a half-star as at first it was hard to connect to, but I was also in a busy time in my life and it was probably not the book's fault.

Secondly, I only publish reviews of books in the subgenre where I’m best known (queer romcom) if they’re glowing.

He grew from the boy who just didn't notice it, to be the boy that actively tried to correct himself and help Bel and Neelam. The way this teacher told the girls to be a team player when they had new ideas BUT THEN always listened to the boys, especially everything Mateo said was infuriating. Some say 12-18 years old while others say 18-24 years old which is a drastic age difference between the two sets.

There was a lot of swearing (no F-bombs or anything), references to sex and teen drinking in this book for it being a YA novel. And while it can sometimes be … problematic … to portray women as being in conflict with each other (especially since the ‘evil other woman’ trope still looms over us a bit) I actually think it’s also important to allow women characters to be specific individuals who experience unique interpersonal dynamics with other people (including other women).their shared love for robots was so adorable and it was so cute to read about the other one from the other one's pov (so what cute thoughts teo had about Bel and how he saw so many details about her and vice versa).