Book Review:: Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake | Mazey Eddings

Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake is a frazzled chaos of a sweet contemporary romance. Lizzie has ADHD and has been made to feel like she’s something that needs to be fixed, mostly by her own upper-class family, her entire life. When she finds herself accidentally pregnant, she’s forced to take herself and her wellness more seriously for the first time, and discovers she has a sturdier support system than she ever realized.

Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake, Mazey Eddings, Book Review, Book Cover

Our girl Lizzie is a f*ckgirl (the female version of f*ckboy, right?). She has a lot of casual sex, but never commits. She finds people don’t take her well. She’s too much. Forgetful, disorganized, messy- not an easy person to love. This is deeply ingrained in her psyche since childhood. It’s just who she is. Then she meets Rake, an emotionally-unavailable Aussie hunkster on a business trip who finds her quirks endearing. They shack up for a weekend and sparks fly. When Lizzie causes more chaos at work from being (morning) sick, it’s the last straw and she loses her job. She realizes the sickness is because she’s pregnant, and something alights within her, and she wants to do better, for both her and this new baby. Then she calls detail-oriented Rake to drop the baby-bomb on him, and she’s surprised when he drops everything to fly back to Philly to get their new situation figured out. Nothing about this new life is what Lizzie ever expected, but it just might be the best thing that ever happened to her.

The romance is a little unconventional. A two-night stand turns into these characters building their entire lives around one another. It’s almost a slow burn after the blazing bon fire of that first weekend together. They get to know each other on a deeper level in these circumstances than if they’d simply been ‘dating’, and there was something so wholesome about that. I really loved that Rake wasn’t letting the people in Lizzie’s life make her feel less than because of things she cannot control. He’s a great guy. Maybe even too great!

I feel conflicted about this book. The character arcs of both lead characters were well thought through, but some things in the plot seemed a little too forced in order to get there. My reflexive rating just after finishing it was 3-stars. However, the more I think about it, I think it might deserve another. There were enough flaws for me to knock it down to 3, but it was very unique in really leaning into something I don’t see often portrayed in contemporary romance. I think the representation here is important, and the conflict and self-discovery that results from it is meaningful.

While it is a fun and often light-hearted contemporary romance, it also made me think and feel things I wasn’t expecting. It’s nice sometimes to read books with unconventional lead characters, and this is a great example of that.