REVIEW: The Mistake by Elle Kennedy
A Reviews / Recommended ReadsContemporary / Hockey Player / New Adult12 Comments
Dear Ms. Kennedy:
After reading and really adoring your previous release in this series, The Deal, I was very excited to read more about John Logan, a hockey player and a guy with a thing for his best friend’s girl. I was intrigued to see how you handled that, as you already gave Logan’s best friend, Garrett and his girlfriend, Hannah, a very satisfying HEA.
John Logan is tired. He’s tired of partying and drinking too much, and hooking up with puck bunnies and getting every girl he tries for. He’s tired of all of it coming too easily to him. He’s tired of having a thing for his best friend’s girl. And he’s using all of those readily available distractions to forget what’s awaiting him after college. Despite being among the best hockey players on his team, and being a shoe in to be drafted into the NHL, Logan will be skipping the draft. He and his brother made a deal. His brother has put his life on hold to handle the Logan & Sons, the mechanic shop that his father is supposed to be running, while Logan is in college. In return, after graduation, Logan will take over the business, and the care of his father, who is a fall down drunk.
Needless to say, Logan wants to forget it all.
One night while skipping yet another party, he mistakenly knocks on Grave Ivers’ door. Grace is a freshman. One who gets stellar grades and is a very good girl. She works hard, minds her business and has never done a rebellious or dangerous thing in her life. Until John Logan knocks on her door. And she answers, while wearing ratty pajamas. She recognizes him immediately, and lets him in so he can call his friends. But John is distracted by the fact that Grace is in the midst of a Die Hard movie marathon. And soon he’s invited himself to share her stash of gummy bears and watch the movies. Soon they’re kissing, and John’s not even sure why. Sure, he’s attracted to Grace, but he avoids freshman as a rule and has zero interest in anything serious.
Grace can’t believe it. John Logan is kissing her. Not only is he gorgeous, but he’s popular and he’s in her room and they are hooking up! But, when their interlude is over, John pretty much packs up and takes off. But when he spots her again at the movies, they end up sitting together and making out. Soon John and Grace are hooking up on a regular basis. While Grace knows she’s starting to have feelings for John, he realizes that things are getting too serious. He decides to end things with her, but when he gets to her room to talk to her, she initiates a heated sexual encounter. When she confesses to John that she’s a virgin, he seizes upon that as an excuse to end things with her, telling her he’s not looking for anything serious, then he compounds the awfulness of the moment by confessing he might have feelings for someone else. Outraged, Grace kicks him out of her room and out of her life.
The rest of the book is about John’s quick realization that he messed up BIG. And his pursuit and wooing of Grace.
And it is spectacular.
I love a Hero in Hot Pursuit trope. I love it even better if the hero screws up and then has to grovel. And John Logan? He gives excellent grovel. Plus, when Grace leaves college after her freshman year, she’s devastated and upset about John and about a rift with her best friend caused in an ancillary way by her relationship with John.
She spends the summer getting herself together and comes back to college resolved to make changes in her life. And she does. Grace has agency. She makes important changes, including cutting out friends who weren’t really friends, and keeping those who are bad for her at arm’s length. She’s funny and smart and self-aware. And watching her push John and force him to own up to his own past actions is lovely. Moreover, John is a truly sweet hero. Oh, not at first. At first he’s careless with Grace and doesn’t show the proper respect for how interesting and truly good for him he is. But once he realizes it, he does everything he can to make her happy, despite things not going well for him in his personal life. He is honest, and mans up to wronging her, and he continues to be honest with her, even when a lie would be easier. It’s refreshing and sweet, and really romantic.
This is one of two really fantastic New Adult books releasing in a two week span (the other is The Friend Zone by Kristen Callihan, reviewed for DA by Kaetrin). If you’ve been waiting to try New Adult, and weren’t sure whether you’d like it, I’d highly recommend starting with The Mistake — it stands alone very well, no need to read book 1, though you’ll want to. The Mistake has wonderful characterization without the angst that seems to be so typical of NA romance these days, it features snappy dialogue and really hot love scenes. I loved this book, and I think you will too. Final grade: A.
Kind regards,
Kati
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I’m going to have to get this because I am a sucker for a really good grovel and male pursuing tropes. To top it off, the herione is bettering her life instead of wallowing. Sold!
This sounds intriguing and I think I’ll give it a try in spite of the fact that one facet struck me as really unlikely: he’s not going to go for the NHL draft because he promised he’d go home and take care of the family business and his drunk dad? If he’s in the NHL, wouldn’t he have the money to pay someone to take the business and help take care of his father? This seems weird and short-sighted.
@Jennie: It’s actually explained in a very credible way, and I found the resolution believable. I’d encourage you to give it a try, I’m probably not doing justice to how well she addresses it.
I loved The Deal so I’m really looking forward to this one.
I loved The Mistake. The Deal was awesome and I wasn’t sure how Kennedy could make me like Logan, but she did. Both books are full of witty, fun dialogue and a fast paced read that will tug at your heart at times.
I just finished The Friend Zone and think I may have liked it even more than The Hook Up. Callihan’s characters are refreshing and mature. And, as with Kennedy, she has a lot of very funny dialogue going on. In addition, there is not the same old angsty nonsense as in many NA books. I love that these people don’t make the same mistakes over and over. The stories move fast. I know some readers have had issues with technical points regarding the football aspect but I say…whatever. It’s nothing too glaring so I’m fine with it.
I loved this one too. I liked The Deal better but they’re both great reads.
@Jennie: Apparently (I’m not a hockey expert by any stretch) many college players who get picked up in the draft are signed and then play with a non-NHL team. I think it might be called a “farm team”? I gather it’s like the minor leagues in baseball or the reserves in our Aussie Rules football. Anyway, those players don’t usually start playing at the NHL level straight away and in the book at least, it was presented as pretty rare for a college player to get signed with a team and then start on the lineup straight away. A contract with a future promise of an NHL career (which is what the farm team option would amount to) would be unlikely to convince Jeff he should wait even more years to start his own life and it would be unlikely to be enough money to pay for care for his dad and someone to run the mechanic shop and support Logan – I gather the big bucks are for later. Logan was good enough to play NHL but no-one seemed to think he’d be able to slot straight into an NHL team. So, while he realised he had a good chance at playing pro hockey, it wouldn’t come in time for him to be able to renegotiate a deal with Jeff. From Jeff’s side of things, he’s been waiting for 4 or 5 years for Logan to finish college so he can spend some quality time backpacking around Europe with his longstanding (and longsuffering) girlfriend. He wants a couple of years of freedom and that’s the deal he and Logan made at the start of Logan’s college education. FWIW, it worked for me in the book. (I’m not sure I explained it that well!)
I really liked “The Mistake” too. The balance of (realistic) angst, pathos & humour was so well done. I enjoyed the interactions between Grace’s mum and Logan & Grace, as well as the scenes in the radio station for a good laugh. Unlike other NA and YA books, I feel that Kennedy gives the reader flawed parental relationships & characteristics that impact upon the protagonists without demonising the parents or oversimplifying the relational dynamics. Logan’s ambivalence and choices about caring for his Father were so understandable and realistic – feeling both love (for the father he had had when sober) and hate. I really liked that Kennedy didn’t just make the story arc about Logan “freeing” himself from his Father, but rather grappling with the conflicting desires, choices and emotions that the situation created. The conversation between Grave and Logan about this issue and Graces’ reflection about her chosen career in psychology as a nice flashpoint. Similarly Grace’s mothers’ “flightiness” was so nicely portrayed for its strengths as well as its disadvantages. And Graces Father and their relationship was a positive representation of a caring if “imperfect” relationship too.
I’m a very recent reader of NA but Kennedy, Callihan and Bowen’s books are just THAT good they have me converted – I just wish there were more like them out there (finding that a lot of the other stuff in this genre ranges from blah too just awful).
@Lenice, Have you read Fan Girl by Rainbow Rowell? I keep recommending this book because it was the first NA book I read that was so good I found myself wanting more like it. It was written in 2013. I was excited when Kennedy, Callihan, and Bowen published their fantastic NA books.
I really liked this book, not as much as The Deal, though. The only thing that bothered me slightly about this book was Grace’s age. She was only a freshman in the first half and then just a sophomore. She didn’t always seem very mature to me. I guess reading The Deal and having both characters be the same age made me see the difference with these characters and this book. I don’t think that she was portrayed in an immature way and it wasn’t like there was a huge age difference, I just kept getting distracted by her only being a freshman or only being a sophomore. It sometimes seemed like John was in a different place than she was – despite that she had to help him along emotionally and in maturity. I guess I can’t totally describe what it was, just enough that I kept thinking, hmm, she seems kind of young. Maybe when it was his fear that he would be graduated and working and depressed about it and she would still be a young free college student? I don’t know. And again, I really liked this book!!! I can’t wait for the next in the series and I LOVE her Midnight assassin books.
Having read Callihan’s pair, which I also enjoyed very much, it was fun to see Drew Baylor’s name pop up as a crossover in this book! I agree with those who find similarities in the two authors’ writing as well. (One very specific similarity was a particular kind of sexual experiment, one that doesn’t seem common in m/f romance…)
I’m looking forward to future books in these series.
@Kay: I keep getting the two series’ hopelessly muddled. These little Easter Egg crossovers aren’t helping!! LOL
i really really don’t like Grace..Logan is too good for her, i almost didn’t finish this book. why cant we just have a book where the main guy or girl gets tired of the bullshit and moves on to someone else? This girl just irritated me, i think she over exaggerated the groveling. anyway just my opinion.