A review by marylinaris
My Mechanical Romance by Alexene Farol Follmuth

emotional funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

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!) 

I was provided an e-ARC by the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
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