Mazey Eddings is a neurodiverse author, dentist, and (most important) stage mom to her cats, Yaya and Zadie. She can most often be found reading romance novels under her weighted blanket and asking her boyfriend to bring her snacks. She's made it her personal mission in life to destigmatize mental health issues and write love stories for every brain. With roots in Ohio and North Carolina, she now calls Philadelphia home. She is the author of A Brush With Love. You can find her online at mazeyeddings.com. You can find more of my reviews of her work here.
Lizzie has made endless mistakes. Kitchen fires, pyramid schemes, bangs (of the hair and human variety)—you name it, she's done it . . . and made a mess of it too. One mistake she's never made is letting anyone get closer to her than a single hookup. But after losing yet another bakery job due to her uncontrolled ADHD, she breaks her cardinal rule and has a two-night stand that changes everything. Once burned, twice shy, Rake has given up on relationships. And feelings. And any form of intimacy, for that matter. Yet something about charming, chaotic Lizzie has him lowering his guard. For two nights, that is. Then it's back home to Australia and far away from the pesky feelings Lizzie pulls from him. But when Lizzie tells him she's got an unexpected bun in the oven, he'll do whatever it takes to be part of his child's life . . . except be emotionally vulnerable, obviously. He's never going to make that mistake again. Through a series of mishaps, totally "platonic" single-bed sharing, and an underground erotic baking scheme, Lizzie and Rake learn that even the biggest mistakes can have the most beautiful consequences.
I loved Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake probably more than Eddings's debut novel, A Brush With Love, for so many reasons. The first being that I really bought into the love story. The unexpected pregnancy trope is probably one of my least favorites, because I feel like it's really difficult to believe two main characters falling in love despite their situation. However, I truly felt that Lizzie and Rake were making all the necessary connection outside of their situation to believe that they were falling for one another. Eddings does a great job keeping their situation in mind, and developing the plot accordingly, but also making sure that balances out with the regular interactions that makes readers believe that they're falling in love with each other for who they are, not for what situation they're in.
Lizzie has ADHD, and is a big part of who she is and how she interacts with the world. I love Eddings's mission to write love stories for every brain, and I felt like she really emphasized the importance of that in Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake. She depicts Lizzie's ADHD with compassion and honesty. I am neurotypical, so I don't share in those experiences with Lizzie and cannot speak to anything else other than how refreshing it was to feel like I was reading something real. Not only does Eddings depict Lizzie's ADHD, but she just makes her characters feel like real people, who have real problems and stuff they have to work out before they can be in that happy space with another person. Rake had his own set of issues, and in tandem with the depiction of ADHD, I just felt like Lizzie and Rake were real people and that this was a real story.
Lizzie Blake's Next Mistake also felt like a true rom-com. There was just enough ridiculous to balance out the sweet moments. Rake literally up and moved his entire life to the States! And of course, the condoms were expired (this reminded me so much of Bridget Jones's Baby I just had to laugh)! In the same way that Mazey Eddings was writing a love letter to people with ADHD and how they deserved love, I felt like this novel acted as a love letter to love stories. I felt so many moments (intentional or not) that felt like little homages to the genre, and to the comedy that comes of living life. So while this read will satisfy those who love a steamy read, it's a must read for those of us who just love a good love story, a good romance, a good rom-com.
Not only does Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake dive into ADHD and toxic relationships that occur from that, but it also balances other conversations about pregnancy, including everything from that moment one finds out, all the way to what co-parenting can look like. I love what Lizzie and Rake decided to do there at the end, and it just makes me all the more excited to see their cameos in Indira's story, The Plus One, which will be Eddings's third novel, releasing in April of next year. It feels so far away, and yet not close enough! In the meantime, you can find Mazey Eddings online at mazeyeddings.com. You can find more of my reviews of her work here.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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