Mistakes We Never Made
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I’ve never really watched The Bachelor franchise, so I’m indifferent to Hannah Brown and her lore. Apparently people are annoyed by her voice? Seems like she’s aware of that since she didn’t narrate her own audiobook. Let me be clear– if I write a whole ass book, I will be narrating it regardless of how you feel about my voice.
Mistakes We Never Made is a silly, cutesy romance book that I didn’t hate. It centers around a miscommunication trope– two people, Finn and Emma, orbit each other over the years but can never seem to be on the same page at the right time. I liked both their mental and physical connection; they were debate team members in high school and that contributed to their playfully endearing quips. They also both seem like they’re hot.
It’s clear that Hannah Brown wants her book to be adapted into a movie and she sacrifices realism to get there. A lot of the plot points are totally impractical (half the time, I was like how did we end up here?) but if you’re willing to suspend disbelief and go along with the ride, it’s not half bad. Hannah, presumably with the help of her ghostwriter Emily Larrabee, writes mundane details well. She nails people’s physical idiosyncrasies, making the dialogue and rapport easier to visualize. That being said, they must not have relied much on an editor because they’re seriously lacking in the comma department.
My biggest gripe is the ending. The driving force of the novel is Emma trying to make her best friend Sybil’s wedding day perfect. Sybil is insane. Sybil is a selfish, immature person and a terrible friend and I’m not sure if Hannah knows that she wrote a sociopath into her book. There is a lot of secrecy and a lack of resolution when it comes to Sybil’s storyline. It seems as though that’s intentionally done to set up for a sequel, but it drove me nuts, especially because Hannah ‘balanced’ it with over-resolution in other areas. As such, Mistakes We Never Made receives 2 out of 5 flames. It’s a fine read– even pretty impressive as a first book from a reality TV star– but even with those caveats, it’s not worth recommending.
