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chronicallybookish 's review for:
My Mechanical Romance
by Alexene Farol Follmuth
Quick Stats
Age Rating: 13+
Over All: 4 stars
Plot: 3.5/5
Characters: 4/5
Setting: 4.5/5
Writing: 3.5/5
Special thanks to Holiday House for sending me an ARC of this book! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.
This was such a fun, quick, and romantic read. My Mechanical Romance is Olivie Blake’s (the author of The Atlas Six) YA contemporary debut under her given name. I haven’t read TA6 (yet!) but reading MMR bumped it higher on my TBR.
Teo is the school’s golden boy and the head of the robotics team. Bel is the new girl who got roped into joining the team mostly against her will. The two bump heads almost immediately when Bel tells him his plan for the bot isn’t going to work. Instant rivals-to-lovers. The banter, the chemistry, the budding friendship and romance that develops from said rivalry was everything I wanted it to be. Told in dual POV, I was able to connect fully to both Teo and Bel, and quickly became invested in their relationship. The other characters often felt a little flat, underdeveloped, which took away from the story a bit when it came to group interactions in robotics club.
The pacing, too, was not the best. It definitely felt like a debut novel in that sense—which it kind of is, but also not really. The story just jumped from plot point to plot point in some areas. It was jolting and I needed more build up for some of the more major decisions and events that took place. These jumps were almost constant from about the 60-80% marks, though there were a few instances where they occurred otherwise as well.
I loved that the book took on women in STEM and the sexism they face. For the most part, I think it was handled well. I liked how they acknowledged Bel’s girlyness and its affect on whether or not she was taken seriously as a mechanic—and that the fact that such things ever have an affect is bullshit, but does happen.
I really didn’t like the girl v. Girl fighting between Bel and the other girl in the club. She was just really unnecessarily bitchy and mean, and it played really hard into that stereotype, which felt counterproductive and just, shallow. I’m glad it worked out in the end, but up to that point it was really annoying and I think it did the book a disservice.
Likewise, I think the book was trying a little too hard with the “wokeness,” for lack of a better term. Don’t get me wrong, I love when books address activism and sexism, racism, homophobia, climate change, etc. I think it’s so important that the books teens read hit on this issues. The problem I had with it, with the exception of the women in STEM aspect, was that it just felt so performative. These references are asides were awkwardly thrown into the dialogue as if the author was trying to hit as as many buzzwords as she could to get “points.”
Let’s make a random reference to heteronormativity out of the blue.
Now we’ve got to mention the Bechdel Test! (the mentioning of this always irks me, because it’s never done naturally, and is always the author trying to be “clever”, but it never hits.)
Of course, a random joke about global warming here!
These remarks always felt out of place in the context of the conversations, and were never elaborated on or discussed in any meaningful way. It felt awkward, shallow, and really took me out of the reading experience.
In the end, it was a very enjoyable book. If you’re looking for a quick, fun read to breeze through, I definitely recommend. Plus, it’s a women in STEM novel. Why wouldn’t you want to pick it up?
Age Rating: 13+
Over All: 4 stars
Plot: 3.5/5
Characters: 4/5
Setting: 4.5/5
Writing: 3.5/5
Special thanks to Holiday House for sending me an ARC of this book! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.
This was such a fun, quick, and romantic read. My Mechanical Romance is Olivie Blake’s (the author of The Atlas Six) YA contemporary debut under her given name. I haven’t read TA6 (yet!) but reading MMR bumped it higher on my TBR.
Teo is the school’s golden boy and the head of the robotics team. Bel is the new girl who got roped into joining the team mostly against her will. The two bump heads almost immediately when Bel tells him his plan for the bot isn’t going to work. Instant rivals-to-lovers. The banter, the chemistry, the budding friendship and romance that develops from said rivalry was everything I wanted it to be. Told in dual POV, I was able to connect fully to both Teo and Bel, and quickly became invested in their relationship. The other characters often felt a little flat, underdeveloped, which took away from the story a bit when it came to group interactions in robotics club.
The pacing, too, was not the best. It definitely felt like a debut novel in that sense—which it kind of is, but also not really. The story just jumped from plot point to plot point in some areas. It was jolting and I needed more build up for some of the more major decisions and events that took place. These jumps were almost constant from about the 60-80% marks, though there were a few instances where they occurred otherwise as well.
I loved that the book took on women in STEM and the sexism they face. For the most part, I think it was handled well. I liked how they acknowledged Bel’s girlyness and its affect on whether or not she was taken seriously as a mechanic—and that the fact that such things ever have an affect is bullshit, but does happen.
I really didn’t like the girl v. Girl fighting between Bel and the other girl in the club. She was just really unnecessarily bitchy and mean, and it played really hard into that stereotype, which felt counterproductive and just, shallow. I’m glad it worked out in the end, but up to that point it was really annoying and I think it did the book a disservice.
Likewise, I think the book was trying a little too hard with the “wokeness,” for lack of a better term. Don’t get me wrong, I love when books address activism and sexism, racism, homophobia, climate change, etc. I think it’s so important that the books teens read hit on this issues. The problem I had with it, with the exception of the women in STEM aspect, was that it just felt so performative. These references are asides were awkwardly thrown into the dialogue as if the author was trying to hit as as many buzzwords as she could to get “points.”
Let’s make a random reference to heteronormativity out of the blue.
Now we’ve got to mention the Bechdel Test! (the mentioning of this always irks me, because it’s never done naturally, and is always the author trying to be “clever”, but it never hits.)
Of course, a random joke about global warming here!
These remarks always felt out of place in the context of the conversations, and were never elaborated on or discussed in any meaningful way. It felt awkward, shallow, and really took me out of the reading experience.
In the end, it was a very enjoyable book. If you’re looking for a quick, fun read to breeze through, I definitely recommend. Plus, it’s a women in STEM novel. Why wouldn’t you want to pick it up?