Book Review: Some Mistakes Were Made by Kristin Dwyer

Ellis and Easton. Easton and Ellis. That’s the way they’ve been for most of their childhood—inseparable, close and likeminded. But they couldn’t be more different at their cores. Easton grew up on a nice street with a family that supports one another and loves without question. Ellis, however, comes from a different kind of family dynamic. Her mother is hardly home, and her father is always in and out of jail. She’s looked after herself for most of her life until she is absorbed into the orbit of Easton’s family. Overnight, she’s part of their close-knit, protective bunch. But Ellis gravitates to Easton like a magnet, something that carries them as they grow up.

Told in alternating points in time, Ellis is still figuring out who she is when she realises she’s in love with Easton. But because of Ellis’s past—and tug toward her real family and all of their destructive ways—she can’t get a grasp on explaining her heart to anyone. It’s clear Easton loves her too, and when they finally cross the treacherous border into something beyond friendship, it doesn’t last long before it’s torn away from them after a devastating incident with Ellis’s father and his illicit behaviours, throwing Ellis in a completely different direction—geographically, and emotionally—apart from Easton for a whole year. But when they finally reunite, it’s not easy: and finding their way back to each other will be even harder.

Overall, Some Mistakes Were Made healed me, broke me, and put all the imperfectly perfect pieces back together. I adored the beauty in the tragedy, the characters (Tucker, Dixon—the whole family really) and how deep the connection between Ellis and Easton ran. I clung to the hope they had for fixing the ties that bound them together, feeling every emotion as I turned pages. I can honestly say this was one of the best books I’ve read all year—maybe even ever. It’s been a long time since a book has had this heavy of an impact on me. I’d give it a million stars if I could, but I’ll settle for five.