I was absolutely in love with her memoir and I loved this story. I am a big fan of enemies to lovers so I was already hooked, you add in an actual wedding and I am sold. Throughout so many parts of the books it felt like Hannah was the one reading it to you with so many sweet southern phrases tied in throughout. I actually loved that their background was in debate and that they would have good arguments.

Overall I highly recommend to any romance and Bachelor Nation lovers!

"Mistakes We Never Made" by Hannah Brown brings together two former high school debate champions, Emma and Finn, who find themselves on a spontaneous road trip to bring back a runaway bride. The setup promises a journey filled with unresolved tension and past mistakes, potentially paving the way for romance. The concept itself is engaging, offering a mix of adventure and the classic 'enemies-to-lovers' trope that many romance readers adore.

The novel excels in its moments of nostalgia and the scenic cross-country adventure that allows for plenty of character reflection and development. Emma and Finn's dynamic, filled with witty exchanges and moments of vulnerability, provides the backbone of the narrative. Their history adds layers to their interactions, making their gradual reconnection feel earned and significant.

However, the story sometimes struggles with pacing and depth. The detailed backstories and emotional landscapes of Emma and Finn are explored, but the narrative occasionally gets bogged down by excessive reminiscing without advancing the plot significantly. This can make the reading experience feel slow, detracting from the urgency and excitement of the road trip that should be at the heart of the story.

Moreover, the novel's reliance on the 'road trip to find the runaway bride' as a catalyst for Emma and Finn's reconciliation feels a bit contrived at times. While this setup provides a clear structure for their journey, the continuous focus on the past might leave readers craving more action and interaction in the present.

Overall, "Mistakes We Never Made" offers a sweet, if somewhat predictable, romance that will appeal to fans of light-hearted love stories with a dash of adventure. While not groundbreaking, it's a pleasant read for those looking for an easy escape with familiar romance tropes played out against the backdrop of a cross-country escapade.

I'm almost a week late on this...but happy publication day to Hannah and her new fictional novel that was released last week!
I am an under the radar, longtime watcher of The Bachelor, and all iterations of it. I've only missed about three seasons in total, and those were 20 years ago. Somewhat embarrassing, but it's my guilty pleasure, so who cares! With all that being said, I watched and thoroughly enjoyed both seasons with Hannah B., especially with her as the lead, and have continued to follow her since her time on the show. When I saw her posting and giving interviews about her new romance novel, I just couldn't resist picking it up, and it did not disappoint!

This book was such a fun, endearing read about love, about male and female friendships, varying family dynamics, and about moments/experiences in our teenage and college years that impact us the most, and that we sometimes continue to think about even as we get older. I think she did a fantastic job for her first fictional novel, and I can't wait to read more by her in the future. 

I loved the ending of the book, though it left me with several unanswered questions! However, I believe Hannah did that for a reason...as she was sweet enough to reply to one of my comments in another post that she is indeed working on a sequel!! I will most definitely be reading it too. So in summary, if you're looking for your next enjoyable and quick romance read, get this one now!

2 ⭐️

let me start by saying I applied for this arc simply because Hannah saying "Jesus still loves me" is a moment I will forever love and quote pretty often lol.

- second chance
- friends to lovers
- close proximity (road trip)
- dual timeline
- 1 🌶

I had high hopes for this since the blurb sounded interesting, I love a good second chance, and adding in a close knit friend group? I'm in! Sadly, this book didn't deliver for me. As I was reading it became very clear that two different writers were crafting this story and their writing didn't blend well. This book has a trope that I (and many other readers) do not enjoy. I couldn't connect with any of the characters, honestly as the book went on I liked them less and less. The grudge our FMC has been holding doesn't even fully get revealed and neither does another major plot point AND THAT BOTHERS ME SO MUCH!!!! I want to know what happened, I want all the details and answers. Overall, sadly this book didn't work for me.

thank you netgalley for the arc 💓

True Rating: 3.5 stars

This book was so much fun to read and I imagine it will be a popular beach/pool read this summer. This road-trip rom-com is single POV, but dual timeline (present day + flashbacks), which provides a nice bit of depth to the relationships. I was absolutely shipping Finn and Emma from page one, the "core four" were #frienshipgoals and I am so curious about Sybil's secrets. I am not a big reality TV person, so this was my introduction to Hannah Brown, but I am looking forward to future books from her.
I received a review copy from the publishers via Netgalley and all opinions are my own.

I enjoyed this book thoroughly! I’ve been a fan of Hannah Brown since she first appeared on the Bachelor franchise - I know many out there gave her grief but she always presented herself very well and this book is the culmination of many heartbreaks and so much hard work. Bravo, Hannah Brown!

The storyline is not the same-old romance plot regenerated, which is another huge bonus point. We find ourselves with Emma and Finn, a pair in a wedding party who have attempted a few times to have a relationship but it’s always epically failed so have wound up as two people who can’t stand to be in the same room together. Both are excellent friends with the bride and actually have a rivalry about who is her better friend.

When the bride disappears a few days before the wedding after an off-hand remark one of them makes, and cell phone tracking places her in Vegas, Emma and Finn hop in a car and wind up on a road trip to trace her and bring her back before anyone notices… and the forced proximity of the car and the time spent together makes them actually speak to each other and figure things out after all this time.

This is a fantastic story and so well written - I highly recommend reading it to everyone, whether you know who the author is or not (and let’s face it, if you don’t know her from her multitudes of reality tv shows, you’ll just love her as a romance author)! This is a fantastic read! And the word “windmill” even appears (iykyk)!

I received an advance copy from NetGalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing), and this is my honest feedback.

This is the story of Finn and Emma. One is basically obsessed with the other, the other appears to only care about themself. Their almost relationship starts as teenagers and is told in bits and pieces throughout the years. Some secrets are revealed but not much else about who the two really are. Kind of one layered characters.

Not sure why the title is Mistakes We Never Made because they sure did make a lot of them and I actually wondered at times why they would even want to be together. I give them credit for perseverance though.

I didn't like how the books ending left a lot unresolved. I do not like that in a book unless it is a series or left to be interpreted by the reader. I don't feel either is the case here. It just felt unfinished and rushed at the end.

Thanks to netgalley and Forever for the arc.

Thanks to Forever for an advanced copy of Mistakes We Never Made by Hannah Brown.

This book reminded me of a Hangover-type plot with a possible runaway bride.. It was cute and a quick read but ultimately forgettable.
I found the characters immature and didn't really buy the romance either.

This was a lovely debut romance from Hannah. I’ve followed her since her Bachelor days, loved her memoir, and am so happy to see this new venture. I will definitely be reading what she writes next with the hopes that she’ll improve upon tying up loose ends.

Hannah Browns debut novel is an adventure filled friends to enemies to lovers novel that follows Emma and Finn. Emma and Finn grew up together but never officially hooked up or dated, not without trying but then things went wrong between them and they stopped speaking. That is until a a friend's wedding where they end up teaming up to find the bride. What they find in the meantime is a return of attraction.

While Mistakes We Never Made is an adventure romance it also follows a few other tropes, some more successfully than others. I think it's a great story but there are a few pieces of the story that feel unfinished. Still a great story.

As someone who's only exposure to Hannah Brown came from a podcast promoting her first book, my reading wasn't impacted by being a fan of the Bachelor. This book was very cute! Finn and Emma were easy to read about and follow, and they had some depth with their family histories. The foreshadowing revealed a novice fiction writer, and the prose felt elementary at times. It was a light, addictive read for a Saturday afternoon. I'll be interested to see if the unresolved action with Sybil results in a second book?

This was fun, frothy, and mindless, which is exactly how I like my rom-coms. I flew through this in just two sittings. It relies pretty heavily on tropes and common themes — second chance romance, enemies to lovers, road trip to force them together, seeing an ex at a wedding — but I thought it was fun. There’s one trope in particular that I know people are going to HATE (and no, it’s not surprise pregnancy) and we’re left with a few unanswered questions, but all in all, a sweet lil read.

A solid debut from Hannah Brown!

Emma and Finn get a second chance when they are stuck on an impromptu roadtrip looking for their mutual friend who has gone MIA.

If you enjoy childhood friends to lovers, second chance romances, a little steam and a lot of drama this one may be for you.

I didn’t love the miscommunication trope, or that it was extremely receptive but a solid effort for a debuting in fiction.

I really enjoyed this book. It was cute, fun, and very sweet. I look forward to see what Hannah Brown writes next!

I had a hard time getting into this one. The story felt cliche and predictable. I wanted more tension and banter. There were big parts of the story that never got resolved…or at least, the reader doesn’t get to know how they resolve if they do. I didn’t really connect with the characters so it was hard for me to be invested in the story.

When Emma Townsend shows up at her best friend Sybil's wedding weekend, she’s all about keeping her eyes on the prize. All that matters to her is giving her friend the wedding she’d been dreaming of. But when she went looking for the traditional tequila shots for the four besties—Sybil, Nikki, Willow, and Emma—Emma finds something she had not been expecting. Finn Hughes is there.

Finn was Emma’s best friend in high school. They were on debate team together and would spend the road trips to debates talking and laughing. Emma wanted to be more than friends with Finn, but she didn’t feel like she could trust him.

They almost went to prom together, but Finn didn’t show to pick Emma up. One summer they almost hooked up, but they were interrupted. Years later, when Emma was living in New York and Finn was in town, they spent a beautiful evening up Emma’s building’s rooftop, and they almost spent the night together. but they stopped, because Emma was seeing someone else. Almost, almost, almost. And now he’s barging in on their bachelorette evening before all the wedding guests show up and the weekend of festivities begin.

But Emma is less angry that Finn is there the next day, when Emma goes back to the room after her run and finds that Sybil is missing, along with her luggage. Emma ditches the plans for a spa day to try to track down the runaway bride, and she enlists Finn and his Porsche. They head to San Diego, to a spa she frequents, but there they find out that she’s headed for Las Vegas next.

As Emma and Finn bounce from one place to another to try to find the bride, they revisit old feelings. The attraction grows between them, but Emma can’t help but also revisit the old hurts, the secrets Finn kept from her, the prom she missed with no explanation from him. Will this finally give them the chance to turn all their almosts into something real? Or are the mistakes too much for them to get past?

Mistakes We Never Made is Hannah Brown’s debut novel. Fans of reality television might recognize her from The Bachelorette, Dancing with the Stars, or Fox’s Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test. Her memoir God Bless This Mess was a New York Times bestseller. Now she’s trying her hand at fiction, and has crafted a road trip romance of missed starts, new perspectives, forgiveness, and fresh starts.

There are so many solid romance tropes here that I was sucked in by the description. Friends-to-lovers? Check. A runaway bride? Check. A road trip chasing down said bride? Check. Sounds like lots of fun. And Mistakes We Never Made is a lot of fun. To me, it felt just a little unbalanced though. The bulk of the story is about the choices Emma made through the years that made her see her relationships a certain way. Through the story, she gets a wider perspective on herself and her relationships that means things will be different for her moving forward. I didn’t see that same sort of transformation for Finn or for Sybil, so the story felt to me like Emma was the only one doing the emotional work of being a better friend. Maybe Brown is planning a follow-up book that tells Sybil’s story (which I do think would help), but at the end of this book, the overall story still feels a little unfinished.

That being said, I still think Mistakes We Never Made is a fun book to read. I read it quickly, as it was so bingeable. There is a lot of humor and some spicy moments and enduring friendships. There are some fun surprises and viral videos and a flying burrito, and I would recommend adding this one to your summer reading TBR, as it would be a really good pool read with your favorite tasty beverage nearby.

Egalleys for Mistakes We Never Made were provided by Forever through NetGalley, with many thanks.

this was actually very good, there were just a few things fell flat for me. i really enjoyed the premise of unexpected circumstances and second chances. for it being her debut romance novel, the author's writing was really good and engaging. this book has well developed characters and realistic dialogue that kept me engaged throughout. i loved the fast paced plot, dual povs and the drama it added much more depth to the story, and made me very intrigued and want to keep reading!

a huge part of the book was sybil being a runaway bride, and I wish we got more closure on her storyline, it felt very rushed and we didn’t really get any answers on why she did what she did.
there’s also a trope that is in here that we all don’t really like… it could’ve gone without and made the story better for me.

overall, this was very fun and fast paced spring read!
all the bachelor/ette fans should check this out 🤭

second chance
past & present povs
runaway bride
road trip
forced proximity

thank you hannah, and forever for the earc in exchange for an honest review!

Mistakes We Never Made is sunny, sparkly, witty, and fun; a fast-paced story with plenty of humor, a solid emotional foundation, and for my fellow Bachelor and Bachelorette fans, a few amusing, well-placed Easter Eggs. I enjoyed getting to know the 'core four' girlfriends in this book. I hope we'll get to see more of them in future books. I love how different they each are, complementing one another's strengths and weaknesses to create a bond of friendship and support that may bend occasionally but never breaks.

Friends to lovers is a favorite trope. So is enemies to lovers. Both are at play here so I was eager to see how the series of 'almosts' between Finn and Emma would play out. Brown gives them realistic and relatable circumstances at various ages that all contribute to the journey each of them needs to follow in order to reach a time and place where they are both ready to move forward together. Their path is humorous, endearing, heart-wrenching in places, and steamy in others, but the roads taken are all necessary to reach their happily ever after. You may want to grab some popcorn before you hit the road with them. It's an entertaining trip.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Ms. Brown has plans to take readers back to the fictional world she has created in this book. There's a bit of a cliffhanger with a secondary character (okay, there's a big cliffhanger) and I need to know what happens!

If you're looking for a fun, flirty, fast-paced romcom with relatable characters, emotional underpinnings, and a happy ending, put Mistakes We Never Made on your summer reading list. It's a great beach, pool, or backyard read.

*ARC received from publisher via NetGalley. Fair and unbiased review.

I am so conflicted about this book. On the one hand, I found Emma, the female main character, to be a little hard to swallow for the first 25% of the book. She's overbearing, controlling, and has a hard time listening to what others actually want, believing that her own ideas about what's best for them are the right ones. With time, it becomes clear that Emma is acting out of self-preservation. She's still deeply affected by her father's abandonment as a child, and it has made it impossible for her to let anyone else in - so she strives to control every aspect of her life, so she can never be let down again. Seeing her wrestle with anxiety, panic attacks, and confronting her demons humanized her, which I appreciated.

Finn, the male main character, was also a mixed bag. At first, it seemed like Emma was overlooking this perfect man standing right before her, especially since she refused to listen to his explanations... but then as the story wore on, it became clear that Finn also wasn't perfect and could have tried harder to make things work. If Emma grew on me, then perhaps the sparkle wore off Finn as the story wore on. I was glad they got their happily ever after, but I didn't feel totally invested in their future.

Their love story plays out in the context of the wedding weekend for Sybil, their mutual best friend from high school. Sybil gets cold feet and disappears three days before the wedding, leaving Emma and Finn to go on a wild goose chase to hunt her down. Here's where my real issue with the book arises: we spend a LOT of time in the early days of that chase, but by the end of the book - the final day, the wedding, the resolution - the author suddenly seems like they ran out of pages and needed to wrap things up quickly. Maybe the contract with the ghostwriter was expiring and they couldn't afford more drafts, maybe they just didn't know how to resolve the story, I don't know - but two major storylines were left unresolved. Throughout the novel, Finn standing Emma up on prom night is a major source of conflict. We learn that he was actually at the hospital with his dying father, and we also learn that Sybil was there for her own issue - but despite this being dangled in front of us for the whole novel, we never learn why Sybil was there. We also never learn whether Sybil overcame her cold feet or did in fact abandon her wedding, instead being told "that's a story for another time." If the author was angling for a sequel, it was a very clumsy way to set it up - instead of me wanting to read another book to find out Sybil's fate. I'm left frustrated and unsatisfied by the end of this one. Don't create compelling side characters and make their stories integral to the central plot and then leave details unresolved - it's unfair to the reader who invested in your book.

🌟Review Post🌟
•
•
Mistakes We Never Made by Hannah Brown
•
•
I got this through Net Galley because as soon as I saw that Hannah Brown had written a fiction book, I needed to read it! I loved the characters so much. Emma sounds like she’d be a great friend to have and her group of girlfriends seems like they’d be fun to hang out with (although, I’m not sure if I could handle all the tequila shots). Sometimes, the miscommunication between her and Finn was a little unbelievable, but overall, this was an adorable rom com! This book definitely gave me “The Hills” vibes, which I loved.
•
•
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️