Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake

Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake by Mazey Eddings

18 reviews

bookwitch's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Pleasantly surprising! This was cute and funny, especially for an unplanned pregnancy as the center of the story. I really liked the characters. And got through this pretty quickly.

Lizzie and Rake have an intensely sexy one-night stand, which up until this point is what Lizzie prefers. Her ADHD has trouble committing to one person, and having to explain her messes, her seemingly flighty personality and her endless mistakes is just too much to bother with, so she doesn't. That is, until she ends up accidentally pregnant. Lizzie can barely take care of herself (or hold down a job), and now she is seriously contemplating adding a baby to the mix. Her friends are skeptical, but when Rake finds out, he drops everything and moves to the US to help Lizzie co-parent. He is not going to miss the opportunity to be a father. Where Lizzie is a hot mess, Rake is clean cut and organized. Their relationship is the epitome of opposites attract, but it just works out.

Like I said. It was a funny, enjoyable little book, and I am glad I picked it up!

Content Warnings

danileah07's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny lighthearted medium-paced

4.0

Content Warnings

dogoodwithbooks's review

Go to review page

emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

CW: frank/graphic discussions of sex, unplanned pregnancy, toxic parent

I would like to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a free e-ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Lizzie Blake, an aspiring baker with ADHD, has been known for being a serial one-night stand person. However, after meeting Rake Thompson in a bar, she breaks that streak and ends up getting pregnant. Rake, an Australian native with his own baggage from a previous relationship, immediately moves to Philadelphia to navigate co-parenting alongside Lizzie.

I really enjoyed this book for a lot of reasons. Eddings provides an excellent storyline that will keep you sucked in and rooting for Lizzie and Rake to work out. Eddings also does a good job with pacing the story through the plot. I never felt like things were going too fast or too slow in this book. It felt just right and it was enough to get you turning the page.

This book provides positive neurodivergent representation, which is the thing I really love about Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake. Identifying as neurodivergent (I’m autistic), I really appreciated how neurodivergent people were portrayed in this book and that it was written by someone who is actually neurodivergent. You can tell throughout the book about what it’s like being neurodivergent in a neurotypical society and I really liked to see how neurodiverse characters can be successful. Additionally, I really liked how the other characters supported Lizzie and her ADHD. They never judged her and were patient with her as she advocates for herself. This made me feel seen (even though I don’t have ADHD) as there’s not a lot of books out there with neurodivergent MCs and they are shown to be loved as their true, authentic selves.

Also, I do want to point out that there are a lot of discussions of sex in this book and the sex scenes are a bit graphic. Personally, I thought that they were a bit too much at times. However, if you like the steaminess between love interests in books, this may be up your alley.

Other than that, this is definitely a book to read this fall. Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake is a fresh rom-com with neurodivergent representation and I can’t wait to hear more from this author.

Content Warnings

beckyyreadss's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I wanted to read this book as I’m a compulsive book series finisher, I didn’t really enjoy the first book but I have to carry on with this series. Again, just like the first book it was missing something and I don’t think the pregnancy trope is for me.

This book has two points of view, the first one is Lizzie Blake, she is known for making endless mistakes – kitchen fires, pyramid schemes – you name it and she’s done and made a mess of it too. One mistake she's never made is letting anyone get closer to her than a single hook-up. But after losing another bakery job due to her unmedicated ADHD, she breaks her cardinal rule and has a two-night-stand that changes everything. The second one is Rake, he has given up on relationships, feelings and any form of intimacy. Yet something about Lizzie has him lowering his guard. For two nights, that is. Then he’s back home to Australia and far away from the pesky feelings Lizzie pulls from him. But when Lizzie contacts him, it’s the last thing he expected – she is pregnant and he is determined to do whatever it takes to be part of this child’s life expect be emotionally vulnerable, obviously. He is not going to make that mistake again. Though a series of mishaps, “platonic” single bed sharing and an erotic baking scheme, Lizzie and Rake learn that even the biggest mistakes can have the most beautiful consequences.

I like dual POV in romance books and I liked the depiction of ADHD within this book. I liked Lizzie’s growth and how she learned to understand her brother but knowing that her mother was toxic and not helpful so she was good for cutting her off. I love the friendship dynamic between the girls and missed them during this book as it was mainly about Lizzie’s journey with being pregnant and having ADHD. I still want Thu book and I hope to God it will be brilliant. The only reason this book didn’t get two stars was because of the confrontation that Lizzie had with her mother and how she stood up for herself.

The struggle I had with this book was the miscommunication of Rake and Lizzie. I couldn’t get behind the storyline either, people can co-parent without moving in with each other and all that. Most romance stories have got to have an element of being believable so that you believe in love and this book has just enforced my opinion of tying my tubes or giving them to science. Another thing that boiled my blood was how much Rake’s ex was villainise for having an abortion. I get it was wrong that she didn’t tell him, but even if she did and he still wasn’t happy – IT'S HER CHOICE. the whole back story of Rake getting screwed over could have been that she cheated and that was it. Not that the tipping point was she had an abortion because it’s got nothing to do with him. In the words of Rachel Green “No uterus, no opinion” - it just wasn’t called for.

This book was a struggle and I had to push through to finish it. Hopefully Indira’s book is better, but I'm slowly losing hope.

Content Warnings

eryn_librarian's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

mbichaela's review

Go to review page

emotional funny relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

ENG
this felt like drinking a warm tea under the blanket listening to someone’s laugh. so lovely.

Content Warnings

frantically's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I really enjoyed the ADHD rep part of this but the romance fell a bit flat for me. It was really just a solid 3 stars (but I'm still unsure ughhhh) - all the great elements were there (I love myself an accent) but to me it felt like none of the characters beside Lizzie were well developed.

Content Warnings