Mistakes Were Made Review — Is It Worth Reading?

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Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner — ★★★★ 3.9/5

Our weighted score of 3.9/5 blends critical read-through with reader reception across Goodreads (3.91 average from a huge 53,000+ ratings).

A college senior escapes Family Weekend, buys a stranger a drink, and has one glorious, uncomplicated night — until breakfast the next morning, when her best friend introduces the woman as her mom. Mistakes Were Made takes the single most taboo premise in age-gap romance and runs at it full speed, and the result is one of the most talked-about sapphic rom-coms of recent years.

Meryl Wilsner’s bestseller pairs impulsive, adrift college senior Cassie Klein with poised, divorced mom Erin Bennett in a relationship neither of them can quite talk themselves out of. Sharp, steamy, and unapologetically messy, it is a book that leans hard into its premise — and asks how much heat a reader will forgive a very complicated situation for.

Our take: A hot, propulsive, love-it-or-side-eye-it age-gap rom-com — irresistible chemistry wrapped around a genuinely thorny premise.

The Evidence Scorecard

Overall — ★★★★ 3.9/5

✓ A viral BookTok hit with a huge, engaged readership
✓ Divisive by design — readers either devour it or bounce off the premise
✓ Holds a 3.91 average across an enormous 53,000+ Goodreads ratings
✓ From the acclaimed author of Something to Talk About

Romance — ★★★★ 4/5

✓ The forbidden pull between Cassie and Erin is the whole engine
✓ Best-friend’s-mom taboo cranks the tension sky-high
✓ The push-pull of “we absolutely should not” is addictive
✓ Some readers wish the emotional connection matched the physical heat

Characters — ★★★½ 3.5/5

✓ Erin Bennett is grounded, guarded, and sympathetic
✓ Cassie is impulsive and messy — relatable to some, frustrating to others
✓ The generational and life-stage gap is felt on every page
✓ Secondary cast (the daughter, Cassie’s friends) stays lightly sketched

Writing — ★★★★ 4/5

✓ Snappy, contemporary, easy-to-devour prose
✓ Dual-POV structure keeps both women’s stakes clear
✓ Dialogue is natural and often funny
✓ Reads fast — a true one-sitting rom-com

Emotional Impact — ★★★½ 3.5/5

✓ The guilt and secrecy create real emotional friction
✓ Erin’s fear of hurting her daughter lands with weight
✓ Some readers find the feelings underdeveloped beneath the heat
✓ Your mileage depends on how the premise sits with you

Heat Level — ★★★★½ 4.5/5

✓ Genuinely steamy — the spice is a headline feature
✓ Frequent, explicit, well-written intimate scenes
✓ Chemistry crackles from the very first night
✓ One of the spicier titles on the sapphic age-gap shelf

Ending — ★★★½ 3.5/5

✓ Delivers the expected happy resolution
✓ Some feel the central conflict resolves a little easily
✓ The daughter’s reaction is a key (and debated) beat
✓ Satisfying if you are on board with the premise

Re-read Value — ★★★★ 4/5

✓ The chemistry and heat pull readers back
✓ A quick, fun comfort-reread for fans of the trope
✓ Highly re-readable for the spice-forward crowd
✓ Divisive premise means re-read value varies by reader

Quick Facts

Title	Mistakes Were Made
Author	Meryl Wilsner
Published	October 11, 2022
Length	352 pages
Series	Standalone
Goodreads Rating	3.91 / 5 (53,000+ ratings)
Main Tropes	Age gap, best friend’s mom, forbidden romance, one-night stand, dual POV
Heat Level	High (explicit)
Spice Rating	4.5 / 5

You’ll Love This If…

✓ You want a genuinely steamy, spice-forward age-gap romance
✓ The best-friend’s-mom taboo is your catnip, not your dealbreaker
✓ You like messy, morally complicated setups that lean into the drama
✓ You want a fast, addictive one-sitting contemporary rom-com
✓ You enjoy dual-POV that shows both women’s stakes
✓ You came from BookTok and want to see what the buzz is about

Avoid If…

The best-friend’s-mom premise crosses a personal line for you
You prefer slow-burn emotional development over heat and tension
Impulsive, messy protagonists frustrate rather than charm you
You want a large explicit-content warning to be a dealbreaker (this is spicy)

Book Synopsis

When Cassie Klein heads to an off-campus bar to escape her school’s Family Weekend, she is not looking for a hookup — it just happens. Buying a drink for a striking older stranger turns into what should be an uncomplicated, amazing one-night stand.

Then the next morning arrives. Cassie’s best friend drags her along to meet her mom — who turns out to be Erin Bennett, the hot, older woman Cassie slept with the night before. Erin came to Family Weekend to reconnect with her daughter, not to fall into bed with a college senior she had no idea was a student.

What should have been a one-time mistake refuses to stay in the past. In the light of day, Cassie and Erin get along just as dangerously well as they did that first night — and both of them know that sleeping with your daughter’s best friend can only end one way. Probably. Mistakes Were Made is the story of two people trying, and failing, to do the sensible thing.

My Review

Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner book cover — Mistakes Were Made by Meryl Wilsner

Mistakes Were Made knows exactly what it is, and it does not apologize for a second of it. Meryl Wilsner takes the most eyebrow-raising premise on the age-gap shelf — a college senior who accidentally sleeps with her best friend’s mother — and commits to it fully, mining the forbidden setup for maximum tension and considerable heat. If that logline makes you lean in, this book will very likely deliver. If it makes you wince, no amount of craft will win you over, and that is the honest truth of its famously divisive reception.

The book’s biggest strength is its chemistry. From that first bar encounter, the pull between Cassie and Erin is electric, and Wilsner writes their intimate scenes with confidence and frequency. This is one of the spicier titles in the contemporary sapphic space, and readers who prize heat will find plenty to love. The dual-POV structure also does real work, letting us sit inside Erin’s guilt and Cassie’s recklessness in equal measure.

Where opinion splits is the emotional depth beneath the heat. Some readers feel the connection is more physical than fully realized, and that the central obstacle — the daughter, the age gap, the sheer awkwardness of it all — resolves a touch too neatly for how enormous it looms. Cassie’s impulsiveness, charming to some, reads as immaturity to others. A 3.91 average across more than fifty thousand ratings tells the story: this is a book people feel strongly about in both directions.

My honest verdict is that Mistakes Were Made succeeds on its own terms. It is not trying to be a tender slow burn or a quiet character study; it is a hot, propulsive, gleefully messy rom-com built around a taboo, and it delivers exactly that. Go in knowing what the premise is and whether it works for you — and if it does, you are in for a fast, steamy, hard-to-put-down ride.

What Readers Are Saying

What readers love

Fans praise the sizzling chemistry, the unapologetic embrace of a forbidden premise, and the addictive, one-sitting readability. Many highlight the dual POV for making both Cassie and Erin sympathetic, and spice-forward readers rank it among the hottest sapphic age-gap rom-coms they have read. It became a BookTok sensation precisely because it is so easy to devour and so fun to talk about.

The reservations and things to weigh

This is a genuinely divisive book. The most common criticisms are that the emotional connection feels thinner than the physical one, that Cassie’s impulsiveness can read as immaturity, and that the central conflict — how the daughter and the age gap will land — resolves more smoothly than its size warrants. And of course, the best-friend’s-mom premise is a hard line for some readers no matter how it is written. The 3.91 average reflects that genuine split in opinion.

Net-net: With 53,000+ ratings, this is one of the most-read sapphic age-gap romances around — but it is love-it-or-leave-it. If the premise and high heat appeal to you, it is a blast; if either gives you pause, it may not.

Romance Profile

Central Pairing	Cassie Klein (college senior) & Erin Bennett (her best friend’s mom)
Dynamic	One-night stand → forbidden entanglement → something more
Burn Speed	Fast — instant heat, slow-to-admit feelings
Conflict	The daughter, the age gap, secrecy and guilt
Ending	Happy ever after (HEA)

Emotional Profile

✓ The forbidden-thrill rush of “we really shouldn’t”
✓ Guilt and secrecy raising the emotional stakes
✓ The messy vulnerability of two people falling anyway
✓ A satisfying, feel-good payoff for on-board readers

Content Warnings

Explicit sexual content (frequent and detailed)
Age-gap relationship with a best-friend’s-parent dynamic
Secrecy, guilt, and family-relationship tension
Alcohol use

Book DNA

Sub-genre	Contemporary sapphic rom-com (spicy)
Tone	Fun, forbidden, steamy, messy
Setting	Contemporary US college town
POV	Dual POV (Cassie & Erin)
Pace	Fast, propulsive, easy to binge

Similar Books You Might Enjoy

Something to Talk About by Meryl Wilsner — the author’s slower-burn boss/assistant sapphic romance
The Music and the Mirror by Lola Keeley — a mentor/protégé age-gap with more slow burn
The Headmistress by Milena McKay — commanding older-woman energy and high tension
The Red Files by Lee Winter — an experience-gap slow burn for a change of pace

Keep Exploring

About the Author

Meryl Wilsner is a bestselling author of sapphic romance, best known for their debut Something to Talk About and the viral hit Mistakes Were Made. Writing warm, character-driven, and often steamy contemporary romances centering queer women, Wilsner has become a fixture on BookTok and a go-to name for readers seeking high-heat, high-concept sapphic love stories. Their work is known for leaning confidently into big, buzzy premises.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Mistakes Were Made a standalone?

Yes. It is a complete standalone with its own happy ending — no prior reading required.

How steamy is it?

Very. This is a high-heat, spice-forward book with frequent, explicit on-page intimacy — one of the steamier titles in the sapphic age-gap space.

Does it have a happy ending?

Yes — it delivers a happy-ever-after for Cassie and Erin, despite the very complicated road to get there.

Who are the main characters?

Cassie Klein, an impulsive college senior, and Erin Bennett, the poised divorced mother of Cassie’s best friend — the two women whose one-night stand refuses to stay in the past.

What is the main trope?

Age gap crossed with the best-friend’s-mom taboo, plus a one-night-stand-to-more arc told in dual POV.

Why is Mistakes Were Made so controversial?

The premise — a college student sleeping with her best friend’s mother — is deliberately provocative, and readers are genuinely split: some love the forbidden thrill, while others find the setup or Cassie’s immaturity hard to get past. That divide is why its rating sits lower than its popularity might suggest.

How long is the book?

About 352 pages, a standard full-length contemporary romance.

Is it a good pick for age-gap fans?

If you love a high-heat, taboo-forward age gap, yes — it is one of the most-read titles in the sub-genre. If you prefer a gentler, slow-burn age gap, you may want something like The Music and the Mirror instead.

What’s the rating?

It holds a 3.91/5 average on Goodreads from an enormous 53,000+ ratings, and earns a weighted 3.9/5 in our review — a strong showing tempered by its divisive premise.

Final Verdict

★★★★ 3.9/5 — Mistakes Were Made is a hot, fast, unapologetically messy age-gap rom-com that lives and dies by its premise. The chemistry is electric, the spice is generous, and the forbidden setup is milked for every ounce of tension — but the emotional depth is thinner than the heat, and the best-friend’s-mom hook is genuinely polarizing. Know exactly what you are signing up for: if the taboo and the heat appeal, this is a blast; if they give you pause, look elsewhere.

Where to Buy

Check Mistakes Were Made on Amazon

Note: Availability and pricing vary by retailer and region.

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