Rating: 96% | A | ★★★★★
Synopsis (from NetGalley): 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 made more than just a combat-ready robot for the championship: they’ve made each other and the team better. Because girls do belong in STEM. In her YA debut, Alexene Farol Follmuth, author of The Atlas Six (under the penname Olivie Blake), explores both the challenges girls of color face in STEM and the vulnerability of first love with unfailing wit and honesty. With an adorable, opposites-attract romance at its center and lines that beg to be read aloud, My Mechanical Romance is swoonworthy perfection. Spoiler-Free Review: Oh, if there ever were a novel to make me nostalgic for and to remind me of my high-pressure, lightly traumatic high school experience. I've read Olivie Blake's dark fantasy novel, The Atlas Six, but I wasn't entirely sure what I would experience going into her first YA romance—certainly not a heartfelt, hilarious story that portrays teenagers without ridiculing them. Follmuth perfectly captures the sense of being young and unsure about the future, a mood particularly poignant to me, a former high school student who struggled with feeling lost among my peers with more "well-planned" goals. The author's portrayal of a high-stress high school—an environment flush with AP classes, college application discussions, and shiny STEM trophies—is eerily accurate. I can hear the conversations about making it to regionals or about calculating GPAs down to the tenths place in my head without having to read the dialogue word-for-word. I'm pretty sure I've performed some of those monologues myself. Often high school is depicted in media as a secondary thought for students, something that they have to attend and suffer through. Rarely are the overachievers centered—rarely are the kids whose whole lives are school centered. For so long those stories have been typecast as boring. But Follmuth proves that there is more beneath the surface, that simply because the events themselves are nothing dramatic—taking tests, playing sports, going to robotics competitions—that does not mean the underlying considerations are not critical. I understand if readers might view Essex Academy as unrealistic or even fictional; but it is dramatically true to my own experiences. And, of course, the characters themselves shine bright. Bel is an incredibly human protagonist whose opinions on college is something I've entertained myself, and empathizing with Teo, an overachiever who feels the weight of the world on his shoulders, is achingly easy. The entire secondary cast is unapologetically unique—the kind of innocent candor that is unique to young adults. And lastly, the romance. This novel reminded me of just how beautiful YA romances can be, how earnest they are. Bel and Teo may not be the most intense couple, but Follmuth's exploration of first love and friendship is beautiful. This is a story for those who are just a bit tired of the darkness of literary fiction, just a bit tired of the otherworldliness of fantasy and sci-fi. Reading this novel felt as though I was returning to my roots, connecting with the type of fiction I was too in a rush to outgrow in high school. I feel as though this novel was written for me, for the people I knew in high school who were anxious, driven, intelligent, and teenagers all at once. This book made me feel seen, digging at adolescent memories I didn't know were still raw. The authenticity is a true testament to Follmuth's writing skills. Thank you to Holiday House and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. My Mechanical Romance is out May 31, 2022.
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