This had some cute moments and I’m all for an age gap sapphic romance story - but I don’t think I ever fully bought into the chemistry between Erin and Cassie. We jump right into the physical and then they are both immediately hung up and it just was hard for me to believable follow without any depth given to the relationship at first.

I was hoping for more yearning and feelings and pining etc. (a large reason I read romance). But maybe I’m just be too critical and in my own way to fully enjoy this one.

i haven't read a sapphic romance in a while and this is what i needed, from the beginning of the book to the ending of the book sparks were flying between erin and cassie meet. cassie is a college senior and erin is a woman that caught cassie eye at a bar during family weekend at cassie college and hook up, but the next day cassie goes with her friend parker to have breakfast with parker's mom (aka erin) and is shock when she finds out that erin is parker's mom her best friend but the two cant seem to turn off there feelings for each other.

i love the friend dynamic between parker,cassie and acacia

the reason i gave this book 4 stars is because i wish we got more of a back story and what happen between her mom and her life before college also we got more og how parker was feeling about when she found out erin and cassie were having a secret relationship behind there back and just a little bit more about parker character.

i loved the chemistry cassie and erin has it was everything and they spicy scenes and there character devlopement.

i want to thank netgalley and st.martins publishing for giving me this arc.

I was very excited about this novel because I enjoyed Meryl Wilsner's other book, Something to Talk About. The two could not be more different. Mistakes Were Made is being marketed as "The MILF book" and I thought that it would be a fun read, but ultimately it is not really what you think of when you think of a romance book. The two characters, Cassie and Erin are more in lust than they are in love.

The whole premise of the book is the fact that mom Erin sleeps with college senior Cassie and then the next day finds out that Cassie is a college friend of Erin's daughter. The premise seems great. We've been getting the straight equivalent of the story for years so to finally have a sapphic edition, I was thrilled. Ultimately it fell very flat for me. It felt like the entire purpose of the book was to just show them having sex.

First off, the pacing is very slow and I ended up skimming the last 150 pages because I was so bored. The only thing moving the story forward for the majority of the book was the sex scenes between Cassie and Erin and even those did not have any real weight. It felt like I was reading the same scene over and over. If the plot was a graph... it would be flat. So much of the story just fell flat for me.

I also got a major ick. We have been getting variations of the "best friend's father/mother" story for years so that wasn't my problem. My problem was the fact that Erin and Cassie seemed to be trying to fill the mother/daughter holes in each other lives rather than romantic holes. The story is rooted in mommy issues, but I think it is taken a little far. Cassie has a bad relationship with her mother and Erin has a very strained relationship with her daughter. I think the thing that ruined it for me is the Christmas scene where Erin gives *almost* matching PJs to both Cassie and her daughter, Parker. It was weird.

The characters also don't have any real personality or chemistry. You could stick any number of characters in the story and it would still read the same because of the complete Y/N nature of the characters. In the end, I think this is what killed the book for me, I couldn't connect to the characters.

This just isn't realistic. And coming from someone who reads romance for escapism and not realism, that is saying something.

Thank you to Meryl Wilsner and St. Martin's Press for an arc of Mistakes Were Made in exchange for an honest review.

Okay, this is my Book of the Year. I have no questions about it.

It has literally everything that i love in a story- queer, conflict, forbidden lovers, emotions, and SPICE!

The characters in this book were literal perfection to me. Erin & Cassie stole the show as the main characters, but boy did all the supporting characters such as Acacia, Parker and all the other college friends were great inclusions as well.

10/10 will recommend to LITERALLY everyone!

While this was unlike many books I read, I didn't fall in love with the storyline. I am not usually a harsh critic, but I need to give my honest thoughts. The idea of a mom falling in love with her daughter's college age friend was odd to me. I did enjoy the characters as individuals, and I know it carried on more because I read the ARC, but it felt like it went on a lot longer than it needed to. Good ending, good characters, good writing style, but average book overall. Thank you-- Meryl Wilsner, NetGalley, and St. Martin's Publishing group for granting me an ARC copy!

Mistakes Were Made is the cute, spicy, sapphic rom com I desperately needed! This was an enjoyable and easy read. I thought this book was great- the author did an awesome job of capturing the sexiness and complications of falling in love, while making me laugh too! I highly recommend this book to romance readers!

When a single mom visits her daughter at college, she is shocked to discover her one night stand from the night before is one of her daughter's best friends. This queer romance is sweet, steamy, and unique. I'm not sure I've ever read a romance that tackles this type of dynamic and age difference, but I really enjoyed seeing how the relationship gradually developed and deepened. The sex scenes were well-written and plentiful - I wonder if Wilsner was actively trying to offset the slow burn of their debut novel Something to Talk About (which I also adored and had an age difference and a somewhat unique boss/assistant dynamic come to think of it!). I like that unlike many romances with arbitrary reasons keeping the couple apart, Wilsner gives you a legit reason to be like "yeah that's a tough situation." My only critique is minor - mainly that the novel had an interesting dilemma with the daughter/age difference that I feel was resolved way too easily. But I still really loved this one, and I'm thankful for another queer woman romance..

College senior Cassie hooks up with an older woman Erin, and only afterward discovers that the woman was her best friend’s mom!

I did not expect this to work for me. But somehow it did! The forbidden-ness of the relationship and the looming threat of Erin’s daughter finding out about the relationship create a sense of anxiety that managed to not take away from the sexy, fun, and effective description of falling in love despite all best intentions. The pacing can feel weird at times, as this book doesn’t follow the exact structure you may expect from a romance novel.

Overall, I would recommend this book- come for the steamy sex and undeniable chemistry, stay for the chosen family and self discovery.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me an eARC in return for an honest review!

Ever since I read Meryl’s debut, Something To Talk About — *ack* TWO years ago???, I have been salivating for her next book. I follow her on Twitter and I’m on her newsletter. I am a serious fanTM lol. Anyways, I was over-the-top excited that I managed to get approved for this bad boi and I immediately started binging it.

I really can’t say enough about how much I love these big dumb idiots!! Like, not even just Cassie & Erin, but Parker and Acacia too. (Not Adam though. >:/) Cassie & and Erin are stupid cute and not-at-all sneaky and I love them, but I also love the weird trifecta of friendship that is present between Cassie, Acacia & Parker. It’s a lot of weird vibes if you think about it too much, but the entire thing just brings me joy. Well, when it’s not stressing me out, right to the edge of my seat. Meryl’s writing is just such a fun time like that. But really, when’s that next book coming out?? *nervous laughs*

5/5 stars

*Thank you to NetGalley & publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review*

This was fantastic. Definitely lived up to the "raunch-com" genre, and I loved it. The characters and the plot were great, as well as the sex scenes.

This book is definitely out of my comfort zone a bit but it definitely wasn’t bad. But on the other hand it wasn’t great either. I’m a bit on the fence about this one, i didn’t not enjoy it but i didn’t really like it either. the characters were fine, i thought the daughter was underdeveloped and used more as fodder to fuel the main characters decisions, rather than an individual. the romance i can’t say i was too interested in either, i think it’s just the age gap aspect of it, i’ve never been a fan of age gaps bigger then maybe 10 years if we’re pushing it. overall 2.5 stars, not a bad read just didn’t really care all that much.

I'm not super sure what to feel about this book.

Pros: The writing itself is great, the characters are well developed, and the plot is intriguing.

Cons: don't get me wrong, I love sapphic spice as much as the next person--but some scenes felt gratuitous, or like they didn't really help the plot along. Cutting a scene or two might have made more room for the friend/daughter who, as the antagonist of the relationship, had an oddly small role in the story.

Overall not bad for a light read, it's just like a square matrix of 36 perfect circles except one is slightly off center.

I immediately request this arc because a best friends mom sapphic read screams “I am the drama you need in your life!” But now that I have read this, I feel conflicted. Most of the beginning was so reiterative it felt like a never ending revolving door. But I really enjoyed the overall story and the underlaying message of the book. And it was VERY spicy! Like from the beginning.

Overall, I don’t think this book was for me. But I am very excited to read some of Wilsner’s other books.

This book is basically porn without plot but it is a fun time. It is very good smut, I will say. It is pretty funny and I was satisfied with the ending. There are some cringey moments regarding race that other reviewers have elaborated on that I agree with. I did find the writing style a bit confusing because it is not third person limited so I had a hard time keeping the pronouns correct.

Thank you to the
I had high hopes for this one, since I really enjoyed their previous book- Something to Talk About and it did NOT disappoint.

Sexy times started at 2% into the book and kept going. Honestly, it's what I as a reader deserved. And it was 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 spicy lesbian sex for the crowd that's into MILFS (I am not, but I love a good LGBTQIA romance). The mother aspect is what messed me up the most. As I told my BFF, I would be perfectly fine with my mother being bisexual. I would NOT be okay with her fucking my best friend. This brings me to my biggest problem with the book (other than some of Cassie's rationalizations)- Parker. While the characters are really well developed, Parker felt almost under utilized. Acacia seemed to be acting as Cassie's sounding board and conscience, but Parker had no discernible personality. I truly don't understand how she found out, and didn't explode at either of them. It seemed especially unrealistic, for someone who claims to have a contentious relationship with their mother.

This was definitely one of the best books I've read! It had everything: a little bit of tension, a whole lot of cute moments, and so much spice! If you like an idiots to lovers book this is for you. It really was just such a good read. It made me feel all happy and warm inside when I finished reading it!

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with this eGalley/eARC allowing me to give my honest review.

This book follows Cassie and Erin. This book moved rather quick I think the beginning for me but over all it was really good. This book is definitely for the people who love spicy books. I haven’t read any MILF/ best friends mother to lover books before but this really was a great opener to wanting to read more.

Overall Rating: 3.5/5
Before I begin, I would like to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with this eGalley/eARC allowing me to give my honest review.

Mistakes Were Made is a sapphic whirlwind of a rom-com that follows the story of a college senior, Cassie, who finds out that her drunken hookup she met at the bar last night is actually her friend’s mom. Throughout the novel, you follow the two characters as they try to navigate this new territory as their supposed one-time fling unravels into much more than they originally bargained for.

This book was one that I originally could not wait to get my hands on. I loved the plot and could not wait to see how this story would unfold. Though as I started to read the book I noticed a few issues and things that made me uncomfortable within the story. While Wilsner typically does a decent job navigating age gaps and differing dynamics in relationships as seen in their previous novel, Something to Talk About, I feel that a lot of that was lost here. They spent so much of the book doubling down on how weird and wrong the relationship was, it made it very uncomfortable at times, leaving the reader unsure if they should be rooting for this relationship or not. There are multiple lines where they have Erin, refer to Cassie as a child referring to Erin as “the adult in the situation,” as if Cassie is not a literal adult. It made it very uncomfortable to read because it’s like if you continue to drill down that she is “too young” then why continue? While they do have an age gap, Cassie is still an adult and those lines start to take away from that. Secondly, the dialogue throughout the book is very cringe-worthy but also super repetitive, the author uses the words ‘tits’ so many times as if there is no other synonym for the word. Also managing to make the main character so insufferably cocky throughout the beginning of the story, I know it was supposed to come off as “confidence” but it just simply made me want to close the book. The story did get better on towards the middle and end of the book though still cringeworthy at times. Overall the book was decent there were definitely parts that I enjoyed but the issues I’ve included slightly ruined the experience for me and therefore I lowered my rating.

Additionally, I do not feel comfortable with how race/racial aspects were discussed in this book. There were a variety of problematic lines including but not limited to:

In chapter 2: when Wilsner described an area as “too plantation-like”
In chapter 4: having the MC highlight the fact that one of the characters is a “mediocre white man” as if they were not also white,

especially these lines where Wilsner writes:

In Chapter 6: “ Her mom had always been proud Erin was close with an interracial couple, in that “I have black friends” sort of way.” which is just a bizarre thing to say and not their place as a white person even to attempt to make that joke, it was very not necessary and made me extremely uncomfortable

In Chapter 14: The scene where Rachel and Erin are at the nail salon and Wilsner has the nail techs say “We don't Gossip” —“Not in English anyway” again, as a white author this is something they need to be more aware of and note that not only does it come off as a weird stereotype but also that it is not their place to make these kinds of comments.

As a writer, if you are not able to incorporate diversity into your books in a way that is not microaggressive and offensive then you need to work on that and get feedback from the communities you are representing. I hope these issues are thoroughly addressed before official publishing.

This was SO FUCKING GOOD. Like honestly one of the best wlw I’ve ever read. It’s sapphic and it slaps! Absolutely loved and obsessed with this book. Highly recommend to everyone. The banter across all relationships was phenomenal. And the spice was *chefs kiss*. Definitely my favorite romance of 2022.

Thanks for the ARC! I enjoyed this book much better than the authors last book. So much steamy chemistry this time!