My Mechanical Romance
Ratings34
Average rating3.8
absolutely loved this, the plot, the couple
all the characters are all amazingly well created - feels like i know them all, its weird
and holy shit, STEMinist books might be some of my favourite creations on this planet
Bel masih belum mempersiapkan aplikasi untuk universitas. Secara tidak sengaja bakat dalam teknik Bel terungkap ketika mengerjakan tugas sekolah. Bel pun dipaksa oleh guru pengampu tugas tersebut untuk bergabung ke dalam klub robotik. Namun setelah lulus ujicoba masuk klub, Bel diabaikan oleh anggota klub cowok, dan satu-satunya anggota cewek, Neelam, juga tidak menyukainya.
Teo Luna, kapten klub robotik, awalnya saat ujicoba menganggap Bel sebagai aset yang potensial untuk klub, hanya sampai mereka berselisih paham. Bel hanya ingin membantu menyempurnakan desain robot Teo, untuk kompetisi nasional, namun Teo, yang menganggap Bel hanya bisa membuat desain yang bagus namun tidak bisa menggunakan software, kurang merespon niat baik Bel. Keberadaan Bel di klub robotik seakan-akan sebagai saingan bagi Teo.
Pada suatu titik mereka sepakat untuk saling membantu, Teo membantu Bel untuk menggunakan software dan Bel membantu merakit & menyiapkan robot untuk kompetisi regional (dan nasional). Seiring dengan seringnya mereka bekerja bersama setelah jam sekolah, hubungan mereka semakin dekat.
Buku untuk young adult ini menyenangkan untuk dibaca, walau bukan bacaan 5 bintang. Alexene Farol Follmuth adalah nama asli dari Olivie Blake. Balik lagi ke selera kita, tapi buatku, lebih cocok ke karya untuk adult dari penulis ini.
Do I have a bias for books about women in STEM yes. Was this the best book ever, no. But i was just allong for the ride. I'm still not totally n board with Teo because of his elitism in the first part of the book. But I loved the girls and topics.
A sweet, teen romance with a focus on STEM and girl power. I found the sections about Bel's parent's divorce and her struggle of feeling trapped between them especially good, tho it does seem to wrap up pretty neatly.
this was so fun! highly recommend the audiobook (and huge thank you to shai for recommending the audiobook to me in the first place)!
a lot of the reservations that i have with Adults Writing Teenagers were dashed away in olivie blake's YA debut. both of the main characters, and even all of their friends, felt refreshingly authentic and real. there wasn't any forced teen speak, and the inner monologues of both main characters was fun to listen to. i think there was room for more conversations about privilege, but i had so much fun with this and generally enjoyed myself, so i won't complain too much.
MORE ALEXENE FAROL FOLLMUTH YA. NOW.
While I did enjoy the book, I had a few issues with it. Mostly the large gaps of time that the author jumped bothered me. It just felt like we were missing chunks of their lives. I don't normally mind time jumps, but these just kind of felt out of place when they occurred. I could also just be spoiled from Kdramas and Cdramas that show a lot of the cuter interactions between the leads during their everyday lives. I did like that the book focused on robotics and described their battles really well so it felt like I was actually there watching it. I also like that it tackled a lot of the discrimination that girls face in STEM fields simply for just being a girl.
In some ways I was a little sad to read this book as I never had the opportunities Bel had at my school. The only robotics program we had was introduced to the middle school (the announcement made in my final month of 8th grade) and was not offered to the high school students the next year despite us all being in the same building. I am glad that girls have so many more opportunities to try out STEM related subjects and careers nowadays.
Finally on a side note, I actually started to read the book because the title sounded like My Chemical Romance (my favorite band) and I was delighted to see the song Teenagers mentioned in the book!
Books, Coffee & Passion
My Mechanical Romance was an entertaining, cute YA contemporary romance. Teo is a genius student, he's ambitious, and he has his entire life figured out. He also has a lot on his shoulders and he feels the pressure to be perfect in all the AP classes, soccer, etc. Bel is a quirky, sassy, genius girl who doesn't know what she's going to do with her life. She worries a lot about everything that's going on in her life, but she avoids making options. She thinks she's still too young to have it all figured out and she's struggling with her parents' divorce. Besides all of that, she hasn't really found her passion which makes her even more hesitant about college applications.
The beginning of the story wasn't the best. Teo was annoying and aloof and Bel seemed so passive and their interactions didn't make much sense at first. I don't think the rivals aspect of this story was done very well. I struggled a little with the pacing too. BUT then things started picking up and I started rooting for these characters.
I enjoyed most of the themes in the story, the differences between Teo's family (parents still married but too busy to be present in his daily life) and Bel's family (divorced parents that wanted to be present in her life) and how both of them navigated their feelings towards their families was super interesting. I also loved the discussions surrounding the fact that teenagers need to have everything figured out while they're so young and still in high school. Another aspect I really appreciated was the discussions about the discrimination girls face every day in STEM, especially WOC.
The secondary characters were interesting too, I loved Dash and Jamie and their friendships. Teo and Bel's relationship was great too (after a rocky start), I loved how their friendship evolved during the long discussions regarding the robots they were building. The way they opened up to each other was beautifully written.
Bel's character growth was amazing, it was great to see her find her passion and slowly become more confident in her intellectual worth. Teo played a huge part in this. That being said, I think Teo's character growth was less developed than Bel's. He had a few moments, towards the end when he understood certain things about himself, his father, and his behavior with Neelam but it felt somewhat flat and rushed. Also, Neelam was a tough character to like. As a female member of the robotics club, she was treated poorly by her male teacher and her male teammates. I was upset about that most of the book, which means this was done really well, and I wanted to like her but how she treated Bel during 90% of the story bothered me a lot. I totally understood why she wasn't exactly welcoming Bel into the club at first, I just don't think it made sense to drag that animosity that long.
Overall, a great YA debut. I enjoyed the diversity, the important topics discussed in the story, the character growth, and the romance between the MCs. On the other hand, the pacing wasn't the best and I think Teo's relationship with his parents could've been explored a little more. I loved the empowering message and the acceptance that it's okay to not have everything figured out at 17 or 18. I think this book will stay with me for a while.
Thanks to Holiday House for the ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is a great book for a young adult/new adult.
We need more book encouraging 1) young girls that they can do what their counterparts can do 2) show young girls/women that they are smart and strong.
I like that teachers and friends were able to see the potential in Bel. Even though it seemed she was pushed into joining the team, others saw what she was capable of, encouraged her and helped her what she wanted for her future.
This is a book i would approve for our daughter once she is of age.
rating- 4.5/5
{thank you to Netgalley, Holiday house and Alexene Farol Follmuth for providing me an eARC of the book in exchange for an honest review!}
publishing date- 31st may 2022
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“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 closeby.”
Hands down the best ARC i've received till date, no kidding.
Like the author just SERVEDwoc in STEM and academic rivals to lovers with no warning whatsoever. Did I mention it's also dual pov???? It's definitely making it to my ‘Books i will pay you to read' shelf (The title isn't literal, i'm broke.)
PREMISE
[b:My Mechanical Romance|58857822|My Mechanical Romance|Alexene Farol Follmuth|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1635340383l/58857822.SX50.jpg|92714618] follows Bel who enrols into a new high school. She's fun, easy-going and doesn't know what she's going to do about college. Applications? extracurriculars? nope. However, when she accidentally reveals her talent for engineering, she is forced to join the school's robotics club by her teacher. Enter Mateo (Teo) Luna, captain of the club. He is focused, dedicated and knows exactly what he wants to do. Teo cares too much about Nationals, while Bel does not. But as they begin to spend more time with each other, they realise they've built more than just a combat-ready robot for the championship: they've made space for each other and themselves.
(review may contain spoilers after this point)
THOUGHTS
I absolutely loved this book. The writing style felt very casual that helped the narrative of the book. The plot and the characters were extremely well developed and felt three dimensional and realistic throughout. The friendship dynamics were also really well done. Every single character felt complex, realistic and had their own form of development. Bel had actual problems and thoughts that weren't limited to the male protagonist. Her parents going through a divorce, not knowing what she wanted to do with her life, feeling alone, etc. Teo despite being more privileged than Bel, also had his own set of problems. The evolution of their relationship also felt very natural and was so much fun to read. The side characters felt fleshed out despite little description. Can we please talk about Neelam. Absolutely loved her. Her whole dynamic with Bel seemed super natural, even during the animosity. (no typical mean girl bull-crap. because let's be real, we don't have those in real life after middle school.)
Coming back to Bel and Teo's relationship. my heart. my absolute fucking heart. Teo's pov about Bel>>>. Honestly this is the standard. The quote I put in the beginning of my review is my absolute favourite but was the only quotable one bahahah. the rest is so normal which again, I LOVE SO MUCH. Give me all the normalcy in romantic relationships and i will absolutely devour it.
“Oh my god shut u-“ And then he pulls me in and kisses me”
“He rifles his hair and oh no, oh no, oh no. It looks so soft”“he walks away with a smile and oh no, oh no, oh no. I am definitely in it now.”See what i meant about lack of quotable hfjfkfjg moments? But here I am quoting them anyway so eh.
The pacing of the book was also really well done. Despite it being generally on the slower side, I was completely invested and didn't want the pace to be faster, at any point.
Last but not the least, the ending was perfect. The author already had me in a chokehold by this point, but the epilogue just made everything better.
The only problem I think people might find with it is the technical jargon. The plot does have a lot of physics terms. I love learning new things and eat that shit up. But i could see how a lot of people might not like this. However, I do want to say that Bel doesn't use a lot of terms until much later, so for most part of the book, things are also explained in simplistic terms.
Another problem I had was, easing myself into the author's writing style. I found that [a:Alexene Farol Follmuth|21814879|Alexene Farol Follmuth|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] / [a:Olivie Blake|16225393|Olivie Blake|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1558925167p2/16225393.jpg] writes in continuous sentences? Like she uses longer sentences than most authors do. My brain took a chapter or two to get used to this, but I devoured the book once I did.
Both of these are reasons are why I gave this 4.5 stars, however that's just me being annoyingly analytical and it could easily be a 5 star read.
Finally, I think the reason I enjoyed this book the most, was because I found comfort in the problems faced by Bel being a woc in STEM. I'm a south asian girl, in sciences and despite being from a country where everybody is essentially brown, there is a large amount of discrimination based on colour here and needless to say, TONS of sexism. I've never felt more understood tbh. My kindle is FILLED with notes because I would aggressively highlight everything i related to.
“the equal credit we have to fight for, the perception that we are less than we are. The microagressions, the gatekeeping, the dismissal we face sometimes, in our low moments we may mistake for being the truth. But even if that's how our story begins, that's not where it ends.”I loved that most instances of sexism in the books aren't blaringly obvious. The intricate way these instances are written in the book also stood out to me, for eg: something as simple as the conversations with Mac, to extreme cases like Richardson (yes people like these exist). It felt extremely realistic and are things that have happened to every other woman at some point in life.
“And you don't understand how hard it is to be a girl competing with boys who don't even realise that they unlike us, are perceived as more competent no matter what they do.”
“know they're a part of this even if- especially if-they choose to say nothing.”
[b:My Mechanical Romance|58857822|My Mechanical Romance|Alexene Farol Follmuth|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1635340383l/58857822.SX50.jpg|92714618] has easily made it to my favourites and I'm definitely getting a physical copy as soon as it comes out. Please. go. read. this. book. as SOON as it comes out. you're definitely missing out if you don't.
preorder (or order, based on when you're reading this review) here: https://www.amazon.com/Mechanical-Romance-Alexene-Farol-Follmuth/dp/0823450104
thank you netgalley for the digital arc, i was very excited to read this!
this was a very cute story, i loved the stem elements and the journeys the main characters went through! i chuckled and smiled quite a few times at the dialogue and there were only a few lines where i felt old, haha.. i felt i could really relate to bel's story and feelings, that made me want to keep reading.
i will say, i had a bit of trouble discerning all the side characters at the start but of course that got easier a few chapters in, when i could put personalities to the names.
my notes are a complete mess but i will say this and label it a spoiler.. HE LISTENED TO TAYLOR SWIFT FOR HER 😭 what a legend 😭