Nerds are so hot.
Especially battle robot building nerds.
Bel would rather die than think about the future. College apps? You’re funny. Extracurriculars? Not a chance. But when she accidentally reveals a talent for engineering at school, she’s basically forced into joining the robotics club. Even worse? All the boys ignore Bel—and Neelam, the only other girl on the team, doesn’t seem to like her either.
Enter Mateo Luna, captain of the club, who recognizes Bel as a potential asset—until they start butting heads. Bel doesn’t care about Nationals, while Teo cares too much. But as the nights of after-school work grow longer and longer, Bel and Teo realize they’ve built more than just a combat-ready robot for the championship: they’ve made space for each other and themselves.
This sharply funny, academic rivals to lovers romance explores both the challenges girls of color face in STEM and the vulnerability of first love with unfailing wit and honesty.
- Title: My Mechanical Romance
- Author: Alexene Farol Follmuth
- Publisher: Holiday House
- Publication Date: May 31, 2022
- Genre: YA Contemporary, YA Rom-Com
- Source: Print ARC via Publishers
- Targeted Age Range: YA
- Content Warnings: Misogyny, internalized misogyny, divorce, cheating (not main characters), complicated family relationships, vomit
- Rating: ★★★☆☆.5
Thank you so much to TurnThePageTours and Holiday House for providing me with an ARC of My Mechanical Romance in exchange for an honest review.
After reading Olivie Blake’s The Atlas Six, I was really looking forward to reading her YA debut (under the pen name Alexene Farol Follmuth) My Mechanical Romance, and I definitely enjoyed it!
I’ve been writing some pretty lengthy reviews lately, so I thought that today it would be fun to share some of the things that I really enjoyed about My Mechanical Romance!
Normalizing different educational paths:
Nobody is going to have the exact same educational path as another person, and I think My Mechanical Romance does a great job of showing that just because someone’s choices are different it doesn’t mean that they’re wrong.
To be fully transparent here, I think that as a society we put too much pressure on teenagers to know exactly what it is that they want to do for the rest of their lives. There is this stigma that if you don’t know exactly what college you want to go to and what you want to major in by the time you’re 16 or 17 you’re lazy. Some people figure it out really quickly and some people need a little more time to figure it out.
Bel, while very smart and very capable, is kind of floating along after transferring to her new school. She’s not sure what it is that she wants to focus on in college, so she’s definitely procrastinating on college apps and making choices on her future — however, I did get frustrated that she was ignoring her class responsibilities. It’s fine to not know what you want to study in college, but you should definitely be working on your assignments, especially when they count for half of your final grade. Aside from that, it was great to see her realize what it was she wanted to focus on in college as the story progressed, and I really liked the fact that Bel ended up taking a different path than some of her classmates as the academic journey that she ends up on is a better fit for her personally.
Highlighting the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated field:
STEM is definitely a male-dominated field, and being a woman — especially a young woman of color — in that field can be incredibly difficult. Bel and Naleem (the only girls on the robotics team, not including Lora who is the business manager) experience instances of sexism and misogyny throughout the book, both on a micro and macro level.
Not only do they experience discrimination from other teams at competitions, but they also experience it from their teacher. The supervisor for the robotics team, Mac (who is also their AP Physics teacher), is very encouraging and enthusiastic, but he clearly favors the boys over the girls. He spends more time checking in with the boys on the team, especially favoring Teo, Dash, and Kai. Mac has a tendency to shut down Bel’s concerns without actually discussing them with her, and while I didn’t always agree with her or think that she went about things the right way, it was definitely frustrating to hear her continually get shut down. Especially when it’s very likely that had one of the boys brought up the same concerns, Mac would’ve taken the time to listen to them.
At her first robotics competition, a boy on another team tells Bel that she can’t be in the area where the drivers (the team member controlling the robot during competition) and engineers are because he doesn’t think that a girl could be either. When she says that she’s an engineer, he makes a comment about “diversity points”, and is clearly judging her and her abilities throughout the competition. There are multiple instances where that boy, and other boys at the competition, are disrespectful to the girls simply because they are girls and the boys don’t think that they are intelligent enough to have strongly contributed to their team’s work.
There’s a scene towards the end of the book where Bel stands up for herself with those boys, and it was incredibly rewarding to read. I loved seeing Bel and Naleem really own up to their abilities and intelligence and show that they’re just as – if not more so – capable as the boys are.
My Mechanical Romance doesn’t shy away from the sexism and misogyny women face in the world of STEM, and I really appreciated the clear message that there is a place for women in the world of STEM and that you shouldn’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
The characters:
Bel and Teo were a lovely couple, and I liked the growth that they went through together and as individuals. They both brought out some really good qualities in the other – Teo says that Bel helps him see things in a different way, and Teo helps Bel focus more on her goals. Their relationship was very sweet, and, honestly, how could I not root for them when Teo learned Taylor Swift’s entire discography for Bel? Any guy that would learn all of Taylor’s music to bring a smile to the face of the girl he likes is a winner in my book!
While some people may not have liked Naleem, I personally found her really interesting. Was I curious as to why she seemed so antagonistic towards Bel when they didn’t really know each other? Absolutely, but I had faith that this would all get resolved, and it absolutely did. I was worried that there was going to be some underlying sexism as to why Naleem had so many problems with Bel, and I was glad that I was proven wrong. I definitely understood why Naleem wasn’t too thrilled about Bel being on the team, and I was glad that once they talked it out, the two found a way to work together and lift the other up. Also, I thought that Naleem was hilarious, she had some one liners that had me laughing out loud.
My favorite character in the entire book was Teo’s best friend, Dash. I just adored him! He was so fun and so sweet. He added a lot of humor, was supportive of Teo and Bel, as individuals and a couple, and he was just an all around joy to read about.
Overall, I thought that My Mechanical Romance was a fun and easy read, and I think that if you’re a fan of a good coming of age storyline, you’ll enjoy this one!
Enter to win one (1) finished copy for My Mechanical Romance by Alexene Farol Follmuth!
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Alexene Farol Follmuth, also known under the pen name Olivie Blake, is a lover and writer of stories, many of which involve the fantastic, the paranormal, or the supernatural, but not always. More often, her works revolve around the collective experience, what it means to be human (or not), and the endlessly interesting complexities of life and love.
Alexene tripped and fell into writing after abandoning her long-premeditated track for Optimum Life Achievement while attending law school, and now focuses primarily on the craft and occasional headache of creating fiction. As Olivie, she has been published as the featured fiction contributor for Witch Way Magazine, as well as the writer for the graphic series Clara and the Devil and a variety of other books. The revised hardcover edition of her cult favorite The Atlas Six releases March 2022 from Tor Books. As Alexene, her debut YA novel, My Mechanical Romance, is coming May 2022 from Holiday House.
Alexene lives and works in Los Angeles, where she is generally tolerated by her rescue pit bull. She can be loosely defined as the sort of person who picked up sparring as a means to improve writing fight scenes. To connect with Alexene online, visit her website www.olivieblake.com or find her on Instagram @afarolfollmuth
Fantastic review and I love the whole idea of this book so much??? Like I think it is ridiculous that we expect literal teenagers to know what they want to do with their lives so young. Not only do we need to see more representation for the different paths but also fields where certain groups are underrepresented. This sounds like a lovely read and I had no idea this was Olivie Blake under a pen name!
thank you! yes, i totally agree it’s ridiculous to think that teenagers need to figure out everything when they’re so young! it’s definitely okay to go into college and be undeclared, or decide just before going to school. i really appreciate that a path like that is being shown as a good option in this book, because for some people that is the right choice!