Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - Mistakes Were Made

Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner

35 reviews

angelfireeast24's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted tense 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? Yes

5.0

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zydecovivo's review against another edition

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funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

To switch up my previous pattern, I started this book on audio and quickly switched to the ebook once it was available. It starts with a pretty steamy scene, which I wasn’t expecting right off the bat, and I did not feel comfortable listening to that in public. Once I settled into my more comfortable reading mode of the ebook at home, I enjoyed it. I loved all the characters (except for Parker, but she was the youngest one, so her annoying attitudes make sense) and how they engaged with each other. The spice level was at least 3 out of 5 and there was good variety in the spicy scenes (a major problem I’ve seen in a few sapphic romances). While this is an age-gap romance, I didn’t feel like Erin was belittling Cassie or taking advantage of her. I always think the trope of “too attractive to resist” is weird, but I let it slide. There were also lots of funny scenes. I even laughed out loud a few times.

The main ick I got was probably because I knew too much information. Cassie’s dream is to be an aerospace engineer, but her longtime dream graduate school is CalTech

and she ends up at MIT

. It felt like the author just Googled “top engineering school” because there are a ton of other schools that are better aerospace and NASA recruiting schools. She also, stereotypically and vaguely, spends her spare time in a “shop”. She’s a senior in college. If she’s getting into CalTech, she has to be the president of at least 1 club, active and part of the honor society, and working on her senior design project. It would even make sense if the shop was described as a part-time job, but it does not appear to be part of any of those things. Also, she didn’t interview for an internship until spring break of her senior year. All the best internships would’ve, more than likely, been filled by then. My annoyance stems from the fact that I am a somewhat recent mechanical engineering graduate. I don’t think most people would realize such inconsistencies, and they didn’t have a huge impact on the plot, but I had to put my rant somewhere.

Overall, I still really enjoyed the story and I will probably try some of the author’s other work. It has good spiciness and I liked the chemistry of the main couple. It got me out of a bit of a reading funk and made me laugh multiple times. It was just the description of the engineering college experience that I had problems with.

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peach_haze's review

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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

3.75

As much as I love forbidden romance, I was a bit wary coming into this one as a best-friend’s-mom romance. To their credit, they didn’t know who each other was when they first met, and Cassie, the college student, was in her twenties (which is more than some other age-gap romances can say).

The book started out heavy with the sexual content, a one-night-stand opening the scene for the rest of the story. It did bring itself back and allowed you to glide into the story, showing you glimpses of Cassie and Erin’s lives.

I did find the author to lack good world-building, but that may just be because I usually prefer fantasy to contemporary romance. I also found Parker, Acacia, and the other side-characters story and involvement to be lacking. This could also be because of the POV that the book, following only ever Cassie or Erin, but I wish we could’ve seen at least more of Parker.

Parker’s initial realization that Cassie and Erin were together was obvious to the reader (though not to Cassie, as she thought Parker was just dumping their friendship to hang out with Parker’s new girlfriend) but I wanted to see more of her true emotions, not just a discussion Parker had with Erin and Cassie at the end of the book to say she accepts them. There’s also when Cassie was hanging out with Parker and Sam, Sam showing obvious destain for Cassie but Cassie never finding out why. Did Parker tell Sam about Cassie and her mom? Or was she just possessive over Parker? And then they broke up soon after so we weren’t able to explore Parker’s life.

The spicy scenes did take a break for a moment, but soon came back around and good god—that is not a book I would reread around others. It was tense, intense, and hot. Definitely recommend if you’re looking for something stronger than Delilah Green, but not a straight-up porno.

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stenn2023's review

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lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Premise is just too out there for me to really take their fairly smooth sailing seriously. Pretty smutty (which was good) but even that got old after awhile. Agree with others that you have to suspend belief for a moment to get into it. If I weren't listening to an audiobook I'd probably DNF though.

Also, hate how they just threw in the underdeveloped "Black bestie" shoulder to lean on for the two white women for the sake of "diversity".

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stacy837's review

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emotional funny inspiring 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

4.5

Lots of w/w sex but the emotions and nuances conveyed by the author and audiobook narrator were great

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amberinpieces's review against another edition

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emotional funny 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

4.0

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torihbu's review

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emotional funny slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

DNF
this isn't my type of book, but it was recommended to me for the "weird plot." i was expecting something more surreal or even sinister, but it turned out to be a story about a middle-aged divorced woman sleeping with her college-aged daughter's best friend. while that's a slightly complex premise, the story itself is not at all complex or gripping. this book clearly isn't for me, but i know someone out there would love it, so i gave it 2 stars

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thebookpaiges's review

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emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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jaebella's review

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funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.0

Was really excited for this but, it was just disappointing. I felt like there was more sex scenes than actual plot. And I get that Erin was trying to push Cassie away but it just came off bitchy. Lastly everyone in this book needs therapy.

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cozycritiques's review

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emotional lighthearted medium-paced

”She’d done a bad thing. Because that’s what this was: bad. How could sleeping with your daughter’s friend be anything else?”
- Mistakes Were Made

Tropes: Single Parent, Forbidden/Secret Relationship, Best Friend’s Parent, Caretaking While Sick, Holidays, Characters in Therapy, Women in STEM, Age Gap, Texting
Representation: LGBTQ+ (Bisexual), Mental Health
Spice Scale: 🌶🌶🌶🌶
CW: Divorce mention, Past Infidelity mention, Parental Abandonment (Past), Misogyny

I picked this up purely because it had been described as “the MILF book,” and it did not disappoint. When there was a sex scene within the first eight pages of a book, I expected the book to be more spice than plot—which wouldn’t have been a problem for me at all. However, I was pleasantly surprised because Mistakes Were Made struck the perfect balance between spice and plot.
There was such amazing character growth for Cassie and Erin, and the emotional slow-burn of them getting together after their initial meeting was so well done. How Wilsner was able to write such effective mutual pining while the characters were actively hooking up was nothing short of amazing. Their chemistry was off the charts, even when they were separated. I loved the long-distance texting and FaceTime dates; they’re two of my favorite micro-tropes, and there aren’t nearly enough books that do it so effectively.
I loved the found family aspect of this book. It was a little messy, considering Erin was Cassie’s friend’s mother, but that didn’t detract from the tight-knit friend group feel. The messy conflict was also handled really well at the end.
Mistakes Were Made was heartfelt and fun, and I can’t wait to see what Wilsner does next.

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