Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake: ARC Review
When I got the notification from NetGalley that I was approved for Mazey Eddings’ sophomoric romance Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake, I was all-caps-level THRILLED. Having *just* finally gotten over my deep love for Harper and Dan from A Brush With Love, LBBM was a book I was EAGER to get my lil romance loving mitts on. So to be approved was just a level of delight the pleasure centre of my brain was INTO.
As always a huge thank you to NetGalley for the ARC, thoughts below are my own. Enjoy.
Having met (and deeply identified with) the chaotic mess that is Lizzie Blake in ABWL, I was looking forward to finding out who would come along and love Lizzie the way she deserved. And my god, Rake was such a breath of fresh air. From the moment we meet him in that bar and the first utterance of Birdy, I was a full blown Rake-loving-fan-girl.
Lizzie experiences the world through her ADHD and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and my god there were moments reading this book that felt SO deeply (deeply) personal to me. Especially the RSD and how frequently Lizzie has been told that she’s “too much”, “too emotional”, too everything. These themes, and the genuine struggle of living life not neatly in a neurotypical box is going to resonate with a lot of readers.
I also saw SO much of my own relationship(s) show up on the pages of this fantastic heart squeezing romance. Lizzie and her brother (oof, been there), Lizzie and her Mom (also same) but most of all Lizzie and Rake. So much of my own marriage was being read back to me and y’all I was NOT ready. Too many feelings.
I think was really worked here was that Rake was written to be imperfect, but also as a mirror to Lizzie’s more outward mess, he has the inward mess. But what I LOVED, loved loved was how they made it work between the two of them. I loved how he supported her, how proud he was of her and how real he felt. He didn’t get it right. He didn’t have the perfect words. He was imperfect, but found a way to love her perfectly.
Look, on top of all of this DELICIOUSNESS Mazey writes love stories that feel like home to my heart. They are funny, moving, real, messy and above all things they are joy.
There are so many moments of joy found in the delightful prose, moving metaphors, the humour, and the ultimately triumph of standing in front of someone and saying: hey I am kind of a mess but I love you and I want to be loved by you. And really can we ask for ANYTHING else right now? Probably not.
Lizzie Blake’s Best Mistake is so many things, great being one of them. Grab a yourself a copy when this comes out September 6th 2022 wherever you get your books.