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ollie_again's review against another edition
emotional
medium-paced
2.75
This was one of my most anticipated reads of this year and I'm disappointed... the biggest issue I had with this book was the pacing -- first there is no tension, no build up (even after the first encounter), then the story jumps sometimes weeks, sometimes months ahead, I was half time confused how much time has passed or not, and also who is even talking. The two women kind of blended together, because the secondary characters (aka their best friends) were little two dimensional. The friends were all kinds of assholish, Parker taking the a-hole crown right away. There is a lot of sex, which is fine, but if you combine it with a rushed conclusion which was unrealistic at best, I just can't help myself but feel disappointed.
I really wanted some tension, pining for each other because of the 'taboo' aspect of the story, but they ignored the problem and just sneaked around. They gave in pretty much right away and that is not something I wanted to read about nor it was really interesting. I was bored for most of the book because of how horny it was... they have sex, we get it. And for it to have "rom-com" in the blurb, this was not funny... like at all. Instead, you get messy friendship drama, or a side of creepy ex-husband because why not.
I really wanted some tension, pining for each other because of the 'taboo' aspect of the story, but they ignored the problem and just sneaked around. They gave in pretty much right away and that is not something I wanted to read about nor it was really interesting. I was bored for most of the book because of how horny it was... they have sex, we get it. And for it to have "rom-com" in the blurb, this was not funny... like at all. Instead, you get messy friendship drama, or a side of creepy ex-husband because why not.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Abandonment and Alcohol
Minor: Alcoholism, Biphobia, Infidelity, and Misogyny
charley34's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Minor: Misogyny
lunarmagi42's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Oh wow I loved this book so much. If you, like me, were a bit disappointed that nothing spicy happened until the end of Something to Talk About, you won't be disappointed here, that's for sure! Super spicy and GOOD. I liked the relationship between Cassie and Erin very much. Despite the age difference (and Erin's daughter being only a few years younger than Cassie), if never once slid towards creepy or felt manipulative the way age difference romances sometimes can, even when it's not intentional.
The "miscommunication" trope is present but works well in the story and is really only there for a few pages even if Erin and Cassie don't actually discuss their relationship for most of the book.
What I think I liked most about this book was Erin's perspective. I liked seeing how her thoughts went from "this is how I/my mother have trained my brain to respond to things," to something much healthier in the same thought passage, "no, I'm allowed to want things, to unashamedly pursue the things I want." A major focus of Erin's character is a sort of self reclamation after her divorce. She's learning that she is allowed to want and like and even love things just for herself, they don't have to benefit other people. The whole book starts with her in a bar making eye contact with a cute girl whose checking her out and deciding that she wants to have sex with her, so she does. So often we see the beginning or the "end" of someone working on their mental health, it's rare to see the middle where the intrusive thoughts are still present but are so swiftly followed up by the new, healthy thoughts. It was nice to see.
Cassie is wonderful and funny and smart. In short, exactly the type of girl after my own heart so I very much understood where Erin was coming from, falling in love with her. She's got her own mental health stuff to work through in this book, with her distrust of relationships and lack of an immediate support system, but even she improves by the end. I liked that she never considered changing her goals for Erin and honestly didn't even adjust them for her. She made her decisions based on her wants and needs as an individual, as a whole person and they happened to align well with her heart.
All in all, a very good read that I will come back to. A new favorite!
Spoiler below is about Parker's reaction to her friend dating her mom. I know I was pretty anxious about that and I wanted to let anyone who wanted to know how that goes down know. Does not spoil the reveal itself.
<Spoiler>Parker reacts pretty well to the whole thing to be honest. She's more upset about the lying than the fact her mom's dating her friend. Even then, by the time we know for sure she knows, she's remarkably cool about it. She doesn't talk to Cassie for about 2-3 weeks right after she finds out about it, but she is never cruel and never makes unkind, unwelcome jokes about the whole thing.</Spoiler>
The "miscommunication" trope is present but works well in the story and is really only there for a few pages even if Erin and Cassie don't actually discuss their relationship for most of the book.
What I think I liked most about this book was Erin's perspective. I liked seeing how her thoughts went from "this is how I/my mother have trained my brain to respond to things," to something much healthier in the same thought passage, "no, I'm allowed to want things, to unashamedly pursue the things I want." A major focus of Erin's character is a sort of self reclamation after her divorce. She's learning that she is allowed to want and like and even love things just for herself, they don't have to benefit other people. The whole book starts with her in a bar making eye contact with a cute girl whose checking her out and deciding that she wants to have sex with her, so she does. So often we see the beginning or the "end" of someone working on their mental health, it's rare to see the middle where the intrusive thoughts are still present but are so swiftly followed up by the new, healthy thoughts. It was nice to see.
Cassie is wonderful and funny and smart. In short, exactly the type of girl after my own heart so I very much understood where Erin was coming from, falling in love with her. She's got her own mental health stuff to work through in this book, with her distrust of relationships and lack of an immediate support system, but even she improves by the end. I liked that she never considered changing her goals for Erin and honestly didn't even adjust them for her. She made her decisions based on her wants and needs as an individual, as a whole person and they happened to align well with her heart.
All in all, a very good read that I will come back to. A new favorite!
Spoiler below is about Parker's reaction to her friend dating her mom. I know I was pretty anxious about that and I wanted to let anyone who wanted to know how that goes down know. Does not spoil the reveal itself.
<Spoiler>Parker reacts pretty well to the whole thing to be honest. She's more upset about the lying than the fact her mom's dating her friend. Even then, by the time we know for sure she knows, she's remarkably cool about it. She doesn't talk to Cassie for about 2-3 weeks right after she finds out about it, but she is never cruel and never makes unkind, unwelcome jokes about the whole thing.</Spoiler>
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Minor: Misogyny
bisexualwentworth's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Griffin for the eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.
This book absolutely delivers on so many levels. The college friend group drama. The divorced parent shit. The found family.
This book absolutely delivers on so many levels. The college friend group drama. The divorced parent shit. The found family.
Both of the main characters are bi, as is the friend/daughter.
There’s a motorcycle.
There’s sneaking around.
And there is SO MUCH SEX. Seriously. There’s car sex, face sitting, shower sex, sexting, semi-public sex, and more, and all of the scenes are written very well.
The age gap was handled really well. The characters had SO MUCH chemistry. Basically, I highly recommend this book.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Alcohol and Misogyny
kbairbooks's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I read this book as an arc in exchange for an honest review and I’m sitting here speechless. I literally don’t know what to say because I enjoyed this so much. It was so cute and it was so… just… normal but I don’t know how to say normal without making it sound boring! But it wasn’t boring! It felt like a true romance, I felt sucked in I enjoyed the story so much and it was so sexy and so spectacular and I really liked the connection between the characters and I really liked their personalities and I really liked how Real world it felt. And despite mommy issues it wasn’t triggering for me and I just am really impressed with this I really enjoyed it. I know I’m blabbering on but yeah what a sweet, sexy, loving, romance.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Misogyny, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Sexual content
arthur_ant18's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with an eARC in exchange for my honest review!
In Mistakes Were Made, the 2022 sapphic contemporary romance by Meryl Wilsner (Something to Talk About), 21-year-old Cassie Klein, in a bid to escape her college’s Family Weekend, heads across town to a bar, where she runs into gorgeous late-30s divorcée Erin Bennett. The chemistry between them is off the charts immediately, but after their one-night stand together, they have no plans to see each other again. The next day, however, Cassie’s close friend Parker takes her out for breakfast, which has Erin in attendance, since she’s Parker’s mom. Obviously, Cassie and Erin have their initial “oh crap” moments before making an attempt at maintaining a platonic relationship. Judging from the lust and then the love that keeps drawing them back to each other over time, though, this proves to be an incredibly tough goal for them to achieve.
I may not typically be a huge fan of age-gap romances, but that didn’t stop me from having plenty of fun while breezing through the sneaky hijinks and age-related anxieties of Wilsner’s sophomore novel. Her snappy writing encourages you to follow these two women as they navigate the sparks that persist in exploding between them and do their best to hide their forbidden romance from others, especially Parker. This could have headed into an icky space (again, there's a reason that age gaps aren't my thing), so I'm glad Wilsner is able to respectfully depict the relationship and get me to understand why the partners have bonded so quickly.
But this isn’t to say that Erin and Cassie are wholly lovable leads. No, they’re fully capable of making immature decisions that left me sighing and/or chuckling at them with a mixture of disapproval and sympathy. I can buy into MCs with varying sorts of unlikable personalities as long as they’re fleshed-out and feel appropriate for the story, which is the case for Cassie and Erin most of the time. Admittedly, there were a few character choices that made me arch my eyebrow a little too dubiously, including one particular moment in the first half that sees Erin behaving towards Cassie in a way that I found to be flat-out cruel. Then there's Parker, whom I didn't think was too charming, what with the puerile behavior she engages in throughout the novel. I get why the irresponsible tendencies of this cast have been a major criticism for other readers, and you know what, sometimes they can irritate me as well. But in the end, I think there can be something valuable to be unearthed in the messy humanity of these characters—specifically Erin and Cassie—as they figure out what they want out of their dynamic and separate the expectations that other people put on them from the things that they truly yearning for themselves.
It's fantastic to see the queer representation here, with numerous women like Cassie, Erin, and Parker identifying as bisexual and Erin's friend Rachel identifying as pansexual. This counters the bi-erasure that's often present in queer media. While we've been getting more and more contemporary romances starring bi leads, including the Written in the Stars series by Alexandria Bellefleur; Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston; and Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert, it can still feel at times like we're living in a world that normalizes monosexuality and completely dismisses anyone on the bi spectrum. That's why it's satisfying to be able to consume a book like Mistakes Were Made, in which bisexuality is front and center and nobody has to worry about coming out.
As for the spice, I feel conflicted. I know this has been promoted as a raunch-com, and I'm all for the leads being unable to get enough of each other in bed. However, I prefer my steam to be the kind where, if it's happening constantly, it explores some creative paths and becomes an integral part of the relationship's evolution, e.g. The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang and Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly. In Mistakes Were Made, it can be fun sometimes, but it can also feel repetitive and extraneous on other occasions. I'll acknowledge that I might be holding this opinion because I'm a cishet man and that I might feel differently if I were a bi woman. That being said, if I want books that boast virtually enough smut to become erotica, I'll go for something like the Dark Olympus series by Katee Roberts. Otherwise, it doesn't jive well in contemporary romances for me.
I feel it's necessary to point out that there are numerous lines in the ARC that made me uncomfortable because of their racist undertones. If you look up reviews for this book, you'll find other readers who've criticized them as well. Thankfully, Wilsner has already stated that they'll be edited out of the final version of her book. I merely wanted to comment on this issue so that anyone who's read the ARC knows I'm not ignoring the lines and I'm glad changes are being made to trim offensive material from the book.
A certain third-act reveal subverted my expectations and therefore amped up the quality of this novel in my eyes. Sure, the rest of the story turned out to be far from unpredictable, but it’s a heartwarming conclusion nonetheless.
Overall, while I wish the sex scenes had been written more thoughtfully and tweaks had been made to some of the characters’ sophomoric actions, Mistakes Were Made is quite an admirable raunch-com whose endearingly flawed MCs deftly traverse taboo-romance territory.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Abandonment and Alcohol
Minor: Ableism, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, and Toxic relationship
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