Mistakes were made was a nearly perfect read for me. The characters, even beyond Erin and Cassie, were consistently written and easy to love. The writing itself was great, the use of dual pov gives insight to both characters in regards to how they are feeling in the moment, their background, and the progression of their feelings. The spice scenes were also incredible and avoided the pitfalls that scenes of that nature can fall into. This book genuinely made me laugh aloud.

The premise was fantastic and I really enjoyed both the story and the characters. The taboo aspect of the story, being the age difference, was written in a way that wasn't uncomfortable. An issue I often have with a large age difference is the emphasis on the power imbalance. Mistakes were made does not have this problem. Erin does not wield her age or perceived maturity against Cassie at any point and is not overwhelming dominant in sexual situations. The evenness of the power dynamic despite the age difference made this far more enjoyable than other books that use the trope.

Now for the criticism. The pacing for the first and second half was a little mismatched, with the first half moving far faster than the second half. I did not particularly mind this but it could throw off some readers.
There were a couple of lines in the book regarding race that made me pause. The review I saw from Amivi on TikTok and Goodreads talked about the specific lines and the chapters they occurred in. I have seen the response from the author on TikTok regarding fixing this but I felt the need to at least mention this and not brush over the lines.

Overall this was a fantastic read and I can not wait to get a physical copy in October

The lines are easily fixable

Oh wow, okay. I went into this knowing I loved the premise, but I didn't expect to love the author's writing style this much. This was so good! It honestly caught me off guard, and keep in mind, I went into it with high expectations. This book has an incredible premise; the characters have really palpable chemistry; and they behave like real people. My only complaint is that I wish there was a tiny bit more romantic development. Still, I loved this so much. I highly recommend picking it up when it comes out.

First off, I do like the story. Wilsner did a great job of maneuvering the conversations between the mostly 3/4 ladies. I liked their banter and interactions with one another. It had a realistic family holiday vibe although I did have to remind myself a couple of times about the time of year (my brain issue). I think this is a cute sapphic romance but the age difference is very distracting and hard to accept. It's unrealistic to imagine a 40-something divorced mother willing to have a hookup with a 22 year old college student (even a one night stand) but if I'm going to go along with that I would need to see the mother be at her lowest. In my opinion, you have to be at your lowest to want to pursue this relationship--especially once you know the 22 year old is your daughter's college roommate/friend.
Also, I often forgot that this was an interracial couple (honestly, I don't remember which one was Black) because the Black girl did not read like one. I know there was a statement or two about her skin color.
Another thing I made note of is how being a "good parent" is aligned with not having romantic relationships. I thought the mom shaming was a little too heavy handed. I also didn't think it made sense because the daughter is college age.
Overall, I enjoyed the story, characters, and writing. I liked the ending and their way of saying "I love you."

I loved this title! It was a nice mix of silly romance fun and emotionally engaging context for each character's behavior. It got a little repetitive, but overall I couldn't put it down.

Sometimes forbidden love is fun and flirty! And sometimes it’s forbidden for a reason? Definitely felt conflicted rooting for a college student and her best friend’s divorcee mom. And yet?

After reading so many romances I usually am able to see the path to HEA, but it not with this one! So wonderful to find ways for the genre to still surprise me.

Thank you NetGalley and @stmartinspress for the e-ARC. Swipe to see the cover art for a book I’ll absolutely be purchasing when it comes out (sorry) this October!

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
🌶🌶🌶🌶/5

There is a certain ratio of anxiety to enjoyment where a book is just no longer a good time and this exceeded that by a LOT.

It wasn't necessarily bad but I spent most of the book worrying about the potential outcomes so I simply couldn't relax and enjoy the book. Then, once the *thing* happened, it was incredibly anticlimactic. I wasn't quite sure how to feel.

Also, I typically love age gaps but I prefer the younger character to be out of college at the very least. I was hopeful that this would be okay since she was towards the end of her undergraduate degree but way too much of Cassie's POVs included stereotypical college activities for me to understand how this could possibly work. At 26 I simply cannot imagine myself being attracted to a college student and I honestly think I will feel even stronger about that in 13 years.

Overall, this just wasn't really for me. However, if the things mentioned above don't bother you, then you may still enjoy this book so I would absolutely still encourage you to give it a shot.

2.5, rounded up.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

*I received this book for free through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

SPOILERS AHEAD








I didn't realize the age gap is 17 years. That isn't the worst part. Neither Cassie nor Erin acts like adults when it comes to their relationship. Erin and Cassie begin their relationship by using each other. Then Erin finds out Cassie is not only younger than she thought she was but is her daughter's friend (Parker).

Erin and Cassie both know it is wrong to continue the relationship but make no effort to break it off, or at the very least keep Parker in the loop. And to top it off, Cassie ends up spending two weeks under the same roof as the both of them. It came off icky and I don't like the way it plays out.

And somehow, Parker is completely okay with everything by the end of it. It isn't realistic. And if it weren't for the sex scenes I am not sure what would have progressed the story. The writing is average, the character development isn't there, and it just wasn't a good pick for me.

Thank you St. Martin's Press for the eBook arc!

This was GOOD! I had to take literal breaks at times because it got so steamy and hot. I think my cheeks where red the whole time reading this. But I also cried at parts and in the end, it was so so so cute! I love a good happy ending and now want this book to be out into the world to share the love and to be able to read a physical copy. 5 stars ⭐️

An excellent read! Mistakes Were Made is a sweet and sexy sapphic rom-com, I really loved Erin and Cassie's weird relationship, it's not very common that you hook up with your best friend's mom.

This was my first book by Meryl Wilsner, and I thoroughly enjoyed it! It was an enjoyable forbidden lovers, sapphic, queer, age-gap book with plenty of smut to fully depict the characters relationship. (Seriously, don’t read it in public or if your children who can read might peek over your shoulder!🔥)
I struggled at first with the age gap portion of the story when I read it from my perspective as a mom. But I’m an old mom, and I could soon reconcile their relationship.
My overall review of the book is that it is fantastic- 4⭐️s. My subjective concerns were a desire for a little more well-rounded character development, and pacing considerations (sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow…) Otherwise, I loved the characters, the comedy and drama, and of course, the romance.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was so unbelievably excited to read this book because Wilsner's other book 'Something to Talk About' is one of my favourite books of all time. And I love myself a MILF, so when I found out Wilsner was writing a book about a MILF???? It was love at first sight.

Before I get into my review, I want to acknowledge certain lines in the book that were called out by other reviewers, specifically Amivi and other black reviewers. I won't be speaking on them because I feel like it's not my place to add to the conversation as a white person and Wilsner has already said these lines will be removed for the final version. I just wanted to acknowledge this here instead of acting like I didn't read those lines and like they did not make me uncomfortable.

I'm giving this book 4.5 stars and rounding it down to 4 for the sake of GoodReads. Maybe once I get my hands on the final version and read that I'll round it up but right now it's a solid 4.5.

There were so many things I loved about this book, I loved both Cassie and Erin so much even when they were being a little dumb. One thing I really loved was that the two of them did not just become entirely dependent on one another and that we got to see them relying on the other relationships in their lives. As well I loved how we got to see how their choices affected those relationships and how they dealt with them.

I did have some minor issues that contribute to the lack of 5-star rating. The pacing could be a little rough at times, it was fast-paced which I loved but sometimes I felt like it jumped from scene to scene way too abruptly and it left me confused until I went back and re-read the paragraph. This I feel could easily be fixed through more obvious paragraph breaks, especially when a time jump is involved.
My other issue was that sometimes I struggled to tell Cassie and Erin's POVs across, for the most part, it was easy to tell because they live very different lives but there were times where I was like 'wait whose chapter is this?"

These are not major issues that ruin the book or anything like that, but they were issues that could throw me out of my reading and could be a little distracting at times.

From here on out I will be mentioning specific events so this is your spoiler warning!

I literally can't describe how much I love that there was not some third act blow out with Parker finding out about them and there being tears and fighting. I loved that Parker's discovery happens behind the scenes and while we do still get Parker being mad and ignoring Cassie and Erin it's not the central conflict and when push comes to shove Parker realizes she loved them enough to not be mad anymore because she knows they make each other happy. I did not want Parker to become an antagonist in any kind of way because I loved her character and I'm happy that she was not.

Acacia carried this whole damn book on her back, she was supporting everyone and stopping Parker from literally killing Cassie while also supporting Cassie. We all need an Acacia in our lives.

Listen 99% of Adam's I've ever been exposed to have been gross assholes so when he showed up here my alarm bells immediately went off and I love being right <3

I don't want to say I was shocked by the number of sex scenes in the books because that makes it sound like I did not enjoy them, which is wrong. However, as someone who does not usually read really smutty books (only fanfic), I was very pleasantly surprised by how many times Erin and Cassie managed to sleep together. I think it was a very tasteful number and it didn't take away from the plot of the book and just made me giggle at them.

I knew from 'Something to Talk About' that Wilsner is a fan of making their characters wait until the very last possible second to admit their feelings for one another...Erin and Cassie were no different. Except it was lowkey funnier because it was like "I bought her flowers, and we cook together on FaceTime, and she checked out apartments for me in Boston, and we have regular mind-blowing sex. But we're not dating!!!"
Rachel and Acacia are stronger people than I am because I would have screamed.

I have also discovered that I love queer 'forbidden romance' where the forbidden part is not that they're queer but is something else, like the girl ur sleeping with being the mother of your best friend/friend of your daughter.

To wrap this up, I really liked this book. I liked how cheesy it was, I liked the characters, <s>(I loved the sex scenes)<s>
If you are looking for a fun, cute and fast-paced sapphic adult romance recommend you grab a copy of this book when it comes out! I can't wait to Wilsner's other books!

tw// sexual content, toxic relationships, mentions of a past neglectful parent

This was a fun read that was actually much more emotionally complex than I anticipated. The stakes are very well laid out from the beginning and the tension is built really well with a satisfying ending. This being a review of an ARC, there were a few issues that I hope are fixed by the date of publication, specifically related to how race is covered in the book. There is also a perhaps over-infantilization of the daughter in order to lengthen the age gap between her and the love interest, but I understood its purpose. What I enjoyed most here was watching the two characters grow together, both being an active participant in the others' journey. I do usually prefer to have some emotional attachment to hang my hat on before we get into spicy scenes, but the book more than made up for the early launch into spice. And of course. I am always a sucker for two people failing to realize their love is requited.

I am not a huge age-gap romance fan so this had a lot of winning me over to do. And... it was actually pretty successful! I was cheering for their relationship by the end, which is a really necessary quality of a romance.

Did it help or hurt that the older woman was younger than me? REALLY HARD TO SAY BUT I FEEL ANCIENT NOW THANK YOU.

I liked Something to Talk About, where Meryl Wilsner convinced me that there can be boss-employee romance novels that i don't hate, so maybe this is her thing; trying to get me to be like, "power imbalance? what power imbalance???" while really naming the power imbalance?

Anyway, pretty fun book! I'll take it!

This takes forbidden romance to a different level. It’s the ultimate
your mom joke trump card.
But really it cannot be this difficult to keep it in your pants (though I say this as a demi)
Although I found the synopsis really intriguing I just couldn’t really get by the fact she was hooking up with he best friends mother but I knew that going in to it. Other than that it was a cute romance if you just ignore the other half of that.
Mainly thank god for Acacia without her it would have been more of the third act shit show I was bracing myself for.

thank you st. martin press and netgalley for giving me a arc in exchange for an honest review.


I'm not a fan of age gaps, especially between someone in their early 20s and the other one is 30+ but, once I saw this book was sapphic I had to give it a try, and I'm glad I did! Sure, the whole conversation and conflict about the couple going behins Erin's daughter, and Cassie's best friend -Parker- sometimes made me uncomfortable, buuut, i knew what i was going into so, i can complain much.

Still, the book was enjoyable, and it was fun, and it had smut, everything I ever wanted in a sapphic book and hadn't found yet, so I'm happy about that!!

Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner is a sapphic romance that I could not put down. Forbidden romance, age gap, sneaking around, and more. It caught me up in a way that I did not expect and made me want more.

I was so excited to read this arc, and then my friends who read it before me warned me about the heavy duet culture language and I saw a tiktok from @Amivi about racist language. These two things ruined the book for me. I hope the publisher and author make edits before this goes to print.



Tiktok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@amivireads/video/7076179306396847402?_d=secCgYIASAHKAESPgo8VtI0FNZq6Hv3ZA19GlE0JNqgz%2BDMBKuuqiEBwah8OtO%2FtWyvSJG2aKL%2F8Q4aroC8FreSEC9Ou19SFiu1GgA%3D&_r=1&checksum=8d268d75ac7f6889f4c7d80ebfeee5f9468944ee9b3506150f4af28709335e28&language=en&preview_pb=0&sec_user_id=MS4wLjABAAAAGIb_fznu22vTzaWXXCjXFNgLFza5pyqYg3lxhkAbroaEW5wwW1ZMG-ZdEePDidJ_&share_app_id=1233&share_item_id=7076179306396847402&share_link_id=F55C2DFA-0548-411C-A156-23BB3B5076E9&source=h5_m&timestamp=1647610917&tt_from=copy&u_code=d875m7j9m744bg&user_id=6734706741194769414&utm_campaign=client_share&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=copy

When Cassie hooks up with a woman at the bar, the last this she expects is for that woman to be her friend's mother. Needless to say, parent's weekend at college just got a whole lot more interesting. However, this book takes place throughout a span of a year, so clearly things continue to progress after family weekend.

One thing that should be noted is that spice level in this book. The author did not hold back when it came to Cassie and Erin's late night activities. Which made for a pretty interesting plane ride where I hoped no one read over my shoulder because they would definitely get an eye full. I am all for an explicit sex scene, but I know some readers would not be comfortable with it, so I felt like it was worth mentioning.

While I enjoyed the story as a whole, I do wish that the characters were a bit more fleshed out. Everything felt so superficial, as if the author was more interested in writing the sex scenes than building the world and characters up. Cassie is supposed to be going to school to potentially be an engineer for NASA, yet it's only mentioned here and there. I wish we could have actually gotten a bit more in her head on that one. Erin works long hours at the hospital, and I would have like to have seen her at her job and interacting outside of her time with Cassie. The characters just never fully felt fleshed out to me and therefor I didn't find myself falling into their romance like I did.

I had really high hopes for this one and thought I was going to fall in love with it. However, I didn't connect with the characters, and therefor couldn't really grasp their relationship. I was hoping to fully immerse myself in this story and unfortunately that was not the case.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book was... it felt like somewhat of a letdown, unfortunately. It had been one of my most-anticipated reads of the year, and I'd really loved Something to Talk about. I'd been so interested in the appeal-- milf book, messy, drama, complicated, something to be quickly read, while hoping no one was seeing my face journey.

Unfortunately, what had drawn me in with the previous book felt somewhat flat in this. It may, of course be, that I am too ace to understand the pull of horniness, as many of my thoughts were *here? now? you promised! you can't hold it in for another 20 minutes?*

I agree with some earlier crit that's been stated-- Parker felt like a somewhat flat character, pushing the plot and relationship along. While we did see her have an arc, and could guess at most of another-- and certainly, she had an amazing moment towards the end, she felt almost the Perfect Fanfic Child as the book wrapped up. The mentions of antebellum architecture (in an almost positive light?), and an interracial couple making the town better were still in my arc as well, but those have been expanded upon by far better reviewers than I.

I appreciated Erin's journey outside of the romance? Coming to terms at least, with the ways she was letting her mother down (in her mind) and how she couldn't, wouldn't be perfect. I also appreciated how visibly, her priorities would shift when it felt like Parker needed her.

I wasn't so much a fan of Cassie's competitiveness for Erin's attention with Parker. It absolutely shows her youth, but it also made me feel somewhat squeamish. This might be more of a personal thing but somehow? not what i was expecting, for some reason.

3.5 out of 5 stars!

Oh wow, okay. I went into this knowing I loved the premise, but the I didn't expect to love the author's writing style this much. This was so good! It honestly caught me off guard, and keep in mind I went into it with high expectations. This book has an incredible premise, the character's have really palpable chemistry and they behave like real people.