Wow! I enjoyed The Mistake a lot more than the first book in this series, The Deal. It's almost as if Elle Kennedy knew all of the criticism I was going to throw at the first book and somehow made sure to improve on all fronts in the next because almost everything was improved on in this novel. I know this book was published way before I read any of the books in this series but it makes me think that perhaps a lot of other people felt the same way I did after the first book and perhaps influenced Elle Kennedy to change a few things. I think what really impressed me this time around was the lack of complete and utter cliches that the first installment was filled to the brim with.

I remember giving a plot summary of the first book to my roommate as I was reading, and she stopped me multiple times to reference other forms of media with the exact.same.premise. I mean it was practically High School Musical and One Tree Hill fanfiction but that was then and this is now. The Mistake improved massively and it surprised me that others didn't seem to feel the same way. I think our leading man, John (aka Logan) was a HUGE improvement from Garrett in the last book. Mostly because we were able to see that he was a womanizer but still ultimately respected women at the end of the day. I mean I'm sure there was mysogynistic dialogue thrown in somewhere in this book but not nearly as abhorent and hand fisted as the first book was. Additionally, Logan was just more interesting than Garrett. He had flaws, more of a developed and fleshed out back story. I understood the conflict he had with balancing his hockey time and keeping the commitment he made to his brother about the auto shop. I even enjoyed seeing the brief angst with Hannah and his initial discomfort with being around her while struggling with his feelings. I was surprised to enjoy that brief plotline considering I normally don't like H's in stories having (or in this case thinking they have) feelings for another person besides the main love interest. And by that point we had already been introduced to Grace so I liked her and didn't want to see her pining away after a guy who THINKS he's in love with his "best friend's girl". I will say that I was glad that issue was solved pretty early on in the story and we didn't have to deal with girl on girl hate or anything. Ultimately, I have no complaints when it comes to Logan in this book. Sure, he did a few stupid things but I always got a sense that he had genuine feelings for Grace. Most of the problems he created in this book were due to his own stupidity rather than problematic behavior like Garrett was in the first book. I'm still bitter, okay? Hannah is a great character and deserves better!

Moving on to Grace, I really enjoyed her character. I would say I liked her just a tad bit more than Hannah only because I feel she was written better. I related to a lot of her problems that she had with her friends in this book so it was nice to see a somewhat realistic depiction of toxic friendships and how to deal with them. I do think having the" slutty best friend" trope was a little lazy but at least the friend was a piece of crap for a lot of other reasons besides being promiscuous. Often in NA books our villains are "sluts" and that's really the only "negative" aspect to them. I also like how Grace somewhat put up a fight when Logan did that really dumb thing and kind of made him work for it to get back on her good graces. Ultimately, I just really enjoyed Grace and feel like she's an under appreciated character in this series.

Of course there were aspects to the book I disliked, hence why it's not a total five-star read. It's mostly due to the same dude bro humor that was heavily prevalent in this book making a reappearance in this second one. I will say that it's not as annoying and the humor has genuinely improved since the first installment as well. Also, Logan and Grace get into a stupid fight at the end and it's really just a case of throwing in drama just to have it. I wasn't a huge fan of it and felt that it genuinely wasn't needed.

Overall, The Mistake is a solid NA romance, that isn't without it's faults but definitely an improvement from the first. I am happy I decided to continue on with this series despite disliking the first book so much.