Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - Een fout is zo gemaakt

Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Een fout is zo gemaakt by Meryl Wilsner

57 reviews

abigailkokitus's review against another edition

funny lighthearted medium-paced

Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This was certainly a fun read, and the sex scenes were admittedly fantastic. I read the whole thing over the course of 48 hours. And there were times I laughed out loud. But I just could not force myself to like the two main characters. Cassie is annoyingly arrogant and conceited. Erin is constantly toeing the line between following her heart and being overly, grossly selfish. The “fuck should” gets annoying after a while. Going to the bathroom to make out with a girl when you’re supposed to be watching your child’s concert? Having sex with this girl when your daughter is literally down the hall? I’m sorry but that’s all a little icky to me. Those are things you “should” NOT do. But Erin doesn’t seem to care because she’s seemingly blinded by sex with a much younger woman and seems willing to throw away everything else to keep having that mind-blowing sex. It’s also strange how Erin notes how gross the fetishization of youth is… just to do exactly that. Just… ew. Ew to all of that. And sometimes I’m like… I just wish I could read a steamy romance that’s about NORMAL people. Not breathtakingly conventionally attractive people that are rich, working their dream jobs, achieving all of their dreams, etc. That’s just so unrealistic. When I read the words “when they bought the lake house” my eyes rolled so far into my head I thought I’d see my brain. Maybe it’s just because like, you know, eat the rich, but I hated that aspect of the story. And I know not ever book is meant to be realistic or whatever. But… anyway. Despite really not liking the characters or feeling connected to any of them, and despite the writing being fine but nothing to write home about, I’m still giving this three stars for the humor and the sex, and for the fact that it’s an easy, fun read overall.

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bookishmillennial's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted reflective 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? It's complicated

disclaimer if you’ve read other reviews by me and are noticing a pattern: You’re correct that I don’t really give starred reviews, I feel like a peasant and don’t like leaving them and most often, I will only leave them if I vehemently despised a book. Thus, no stars doesn’t indicate that the book wasn’t worthy of any starred system. It just means I enjoy most books for what they are, & I extract lessons from them all, even if the lesson is that I’m a ho for the smut, recognizing a genre/book/author is not for me, or confronting my own mommy/daddy issues lol. Everyone’s reading experiences are subjective, so I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Happy reading! Find me on Instagram: @bookish.millennial

general premise:

contemporary age-gap/secret romance
third-person limited dual-POVs
21-year-old college senior Cassie has a one-night stand with an older woman at a bar during parents’ weekend
that older woman turns out to be her room mate Parker’s mom (Erin) 🤭
Cassie & Erin continue to be in close proximity, trying to ignore the chemistry between them & keep it a secret from Parker & Cassie/Parker’s bff Acacia
steam: 4/5— these two can’t keep their hands off of each other OMG 🥵
cw: abandonment, alcohol, misogyny

thoughts:
OH MY GOSH THIS BOOK IS SO MUCH FUN !!!!

I absolutely loved Cassie's confidence and boldness -- she says "I don't believe in guilty pleasures. Like what you like. I'm not embarrassed to be a nerd. You don't have to be embarrassed of reading mysteries. Why would that even be embarrassing?" & this just sums up her general outlook on life. She does not live for or care for anyone else's expectations or "should"s; she is genuinely just confident in who she is as a 21-year-old. As an almost-32-year-old now, I sometimes miss that spritely self-assuredness and this was a fantastic reminder to stand strong in my confidence and to continue to boldly and loudly be myself. #ForeverCringeAndProud

It's so funny because Erin is supposed to be the older woman and I had to funny lil moment of realizing I was probably closer in age to her than the 21-year-old college student. I was like "bish, you are now officially the older woman. THAT'S HOT" hahaha. Anyway, I'm assuming Erin is around 40 and I loved the tenderness and cautious nature of her character. Unlike Cassie, she isn't 100% sure of herself and who she should be post-divorce yet. She is unlearning all of the messaging that her mother passed onto her of "keeping up appearances" and she is navigating what living a joyful, full life feels like for her. I especially appreciated her therapy sessions and the representation of seeing a mental health professional in a romance novel. THANK YOU MERYL!

I am officially on a mission to now read everything Meryl Wilsner has published because sheeeeeesh can they write fun steamy scenes and such palpable chemistry throughout the damn story!

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decembermagpie's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted reflective 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? No

5.0

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annorabrady's review against another edition

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As someone who isn't as old as Erin, there's no way she didn't know how young Cassie was, especially with Parker being two years younger. I'm not even old enough to have a kid in college and yet college kids look like babies to me, I don't care how dimly lit a bar is. So for her to act scandalized and like she didn't know, is bad enough. But then she continues to manipulate Cassie, casting her aside and using her when it's convenient to her.

Also, as a general rule: if you feel the need to hide your relationship from the people you love and trust because you know they'll admonish you or it will hurt them, you shouldn't be in the relationship. Period. This is something both Cassie and Erin did. And it's a huge red flag.

Finally, it's clear that Cassie is using this sexual relationship as a way of coping with her own lack of parental affection and in the process she's using Parker's mom who Parker has struggled to have a good relationship with. She's self sabotaging in multiple ways when she really should just be in therapy.

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thereadinghammock's review against another edition

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challenging 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

4.0

A friend on discord recommended this book, and in my goal to read mostly queer books for most of Pride month, I figured it would be a great audiobook for my commute. Am I glad I read it? Yes. Were there times I thought I might DNF? A few times, but I think that's more about me and some of the things I had going on when/while I was listening than as a reflection of the book (yay anxiety). Did the relationship still make me a bit uncomfortable? Yeah, but it worked for them in the end, so who am I to judge?

If the relationship hadn't been queer and were a "my best friend's dad" instead of her mom, I would have been SO squicked out by it. Also, having dual POV was a big help because you knew where they both stood throughout the whole story. And sharing a name with one of the main characters was disorienting at times, for sure.

The age gap was just shy of 20 years, so significant, but Erin had been divorced for several years, so the relationship never felt like a rebound. Parker was definitely a bit of a spoiled little rich girl, especially that first trip home for winter break, and only irritated me a few times. She did a lot of growing up by the time we got to the end of the story.

Cassie was pretty impulsive throughout most of the story. Ballsy, and while she had a lot of growth as a character, it's almost like it happened in spite of all her choices. More often than not, it felt like Cassie grew up but refused to admit it to herself, only for the revelation to snack her in the face at some later point when it was plot convenient.

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laureljeanreads's review against another edition

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This just did not work for me, I knew going it the premise of the story but the execution didn't work for me. There was too much of a discrepancy between how the younger MC was written and then the romance/steamy elements. It was more of an exploration into why both MCs have mother/daughter issues

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frantically's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful 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

Devoured this! Erin and Cassie are so sweet (and spicy) together and I enjoyed reading about them so much. Besides them, this whole book is filled with sapphic background couples and that made me so so happy.

Their relationship developed in a natural way (meaning they tried staying away from each other but didn't succeed at all) and the pacing of it really made sense.

I wish we had more exploration of Erin and Cassie's jobs and like...passions besides making out with each other. I was alright with it but be prepared that this is very much a romance-y romance!

The Inevitable Drama™ was handled way better than I've seen in other romances in this trope and everything was just really feel-good in the end.

And god the sex scenes?? So good! And so much variety 🥵 gimme more

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