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

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Eventually, though, she manages to forge a fragile peace with the over-achieving robotics team captain, golden boy Theo Luna, and this leads to wider acceptance in the team as a whole. I love Bel’s quirkiness and snark and she can roll out some comical (and often self-depricating) humor that doesn’t feel forced and the pop culture references feel earned and honest (I kind of loved the teacher holding up a sign with a Beyonce reference as it feels sort of dated in a way that shows the age gap between the characters). It's really, really hard to recognize someone as the villain in someone else's life when you're pretty sure you love them both. Many thanks to Netgalley, Holiday House and Alexene Farol Follmuth aka Olivie Blake for the arc in exchange of an honest review! Bel's indecisiveness about herself, her abilities, right down to her glistening fashion was such a fun thing to read.

So, I'm very much a hypocrite: I literally was just writing a review a few days ago and I said that the insta-love in that book didn't really faze me at all, while other situations, like Gilded just irritated me to the point that I disliked the book because of it. The people in this fifteen-second video that I’ve been watching on a loop are my best friends in the whole world. Bel never let it deter her though, she had moments where she was unsure, but she still did what she loved and found her place in the team.I really liked that the characters are so realistic, they are each going through a unique challenge and trying to find their own way. She fills her days with swimming, fishing, quilting, and baiting the tourists who arrive from the city with more money than sense. because of that, she had to learn to work in a team but also to stand up for herself, which she both did and I'm so proud of her. I'm honestly not sure what I was expecting, but I've seen nothing but praises for this new try-out from Olivie Blake. Bel changed Teo and his habbit of always being a fixer and she loved herself the most when she was with Teo—which was both a good thing and a bad thing.

Her stories are smart and make character flaws learning opportunities—I really enjoy how these characters develop through recognizing how their actions affect others and how trying to be better versions of themselves requires a lot of self-reflection as to why you are the way you are—that not only feel real but are good reminders to the reader about themselves. There’s a bit near the end where circumstances force Teo to let go of his ruthless control of everything and accept that his team can support him as well as be supported by him but that’s … like … one incident? When Bel accidentally reveals a talent for engineering at school, she's forced into joining the robotics club. Meanwhile, Teo who despite having everything worked out, is a people pleaser that carried the pressure of being the team leader and the perfect son — which in all fairness, is not the kind that teenagers can withstand. Overall, this was a super fun read and I would totally recommend it if you're a looking for a cute romance set in academia.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). But with graduation approaching, their differences and what they want for their futures, threatens what they’ve built together. I should also add that Bel has female friends who are not involved in the robotics club: and I really enjoyed this gentle teasing apart of support and friendship. 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. As a result of a teacher witnessing Bel's potential in engineering, she is transferred into the AP Physics course and eventually joins the school's robotics team (per her teacher/Ms.

You might know Alexene Farol Follmuth best by her pen name Olivie Blake, and after reading and loving her novel Alone With You in the Ether I knew I had to give her another read. I really liked how he also learned to recognize the signs of subtle sexism present in his own school, robotics team, and the competitions in general.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. Furthermore, the way AFF wrote the succession of the events is very smooth and it really helps with the reading after the rough beginning (at least for me). After that rough beginning, Bel and Teo indeed became one of the couples I am gonna think about for a long time. Oh, and if you’re a fan of The Atlas Six, this is the, um, non-penname—is this even a thing—of Olivie Blake.

And I think what impresses me the most is how robotics or engineering is not my type of nerd and my least favorite field in STEM but there was not one time where I feel bored or clueless.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.