My Favorite Mistake by Chelsea M. Cameron

Release Date: Oct. 3, 2012
Publisher: CreateSpace
Age Group: New Adult
(Mature Content Warning)
Format: E-book
Source: Purchased
Pages: 374
Buy: Amazon / Barnes & Noble
Description: Goodreads
Taylor Caldwell can't decide if she wants to kiss her new college roommate or punch him.

On the one hand, Hunter Zaccadelli is a handsome, blue-eyed bundle of charm. On the other, he's a tattooed, guitar-playing bundle of bad boy. Maybe that's why Taylor's afraid of falling in love with him, or anyone else. She doesn't want to get burned, and even though her other roommates adore him, she wants him gone before it's too late.

Hunter himself has been been burned before, but the fact that Taylor calls him out on his crap and has the sexiest laugh ever make him decide maybe love isn't a lost cause. They make a bet: if she can convince him she truly loves or hates him, he'll leave the apartment--and leave her alone. The problem is, the more time they spend together, the less she hates him, and the more she moves toward love.

But when the man who holds the key to Taylor's fear of giving up her heart resurfaces and threatens to wreck everything, she has to decide: trust Hunter with her greatest secret, or do everything in her power to win that bet and drive him away forever.

I’m on a bit of a “New Adult” or “Older YA” kick at the moment and it surprises me how many of these books are written by independent authors who self publish their work. I’ve really done a 180 on my views of self published books lately, and My Favorite Mistake by Chelsea M. Cameron has contributed to this.  As this book is aimed at the older end of the YA market, naturally it does contain mature content such as sex, swearing, violence and a scene containing sexual assault. I’m only putting that out there because I know someone people are sensitive about these subjects and it might be a deal breaker for you.

So, we have three college roommates looking for a fourth to share a house with and in walks Hunter Zaccadelli, who has been sent by the school’s housing office. The only room available is sharing with Taylor and she’s all “HELL NO”. Boy with tragic past meets girl with tragic past, although at first their interactions are quite entertaining, for the most part thanks to Hunter’s cocky, flirty attitude and Taylor’s sassy retorts. Taylor is determined to get rid of him and he ends up making a bet with her – he will leave if she can convince him that she either truly hates him or truly loves him. There’s a fine line between love and hate, it would seem.

Hunter Zaccadelli is a walking, talking cliché of a bad boy and whilst he too had a tragic past, he didn't seem to suffer for it other than wanting to keep his secrets.  He seemed relatively unaffected in fact judging by his behavior and if I’m honest, I would have liked more depth from him as a character. Taylor was a very sassy girl who had toughened up her exterior quite considerably since being attacked some years previously. She decided that she would not let any guy close to her ever again and was known as “The Ice Queen” in high school.

I liked the way Taylor’s resolve was gradually broken down, how she felt conflicted a lot of the time and generally tried to fight her growing attraction towards Hunter. She would get mad when she was uncomfortable and used that as a deflective technique, and I understand that part of her character. I did question some of her motives at time, and I won’t go into that for fear of spoiling the entire book for you but I will say that I didn't agree with how violent Taylor was. I mean, she attacks her new roommate within hours of meeting him and what did he do wrong?  He was just play flirting with her. I guess Taylor lashed out because he backed her into a corner and she felt threatened and I understand the girl has issues but to physically punch a guy you’ve just met in the nose and then grab his balls is perhaps a little too far.

The writing was fast paced and flowed really nicely but one of the things I did pick up on was that some of the dialogue seemed to span half a page at times with no actions or descriptions added – it was just dialogue and that felt a little weird to me as the characters would be doing SOMETHING physical like looking away, staring, looking nervous or whatever.

Now, admittedly I will say that it was probably a massive mistake on my part to read this just after reading Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire because I loved that book like woah and I was worried that it had ruined me for other books (the jury is still out people). Anyway, what I found in this book was a similar story that was lighter in places, very funny at times but ultimately...not as good I’m afraid.  However, it was highly entertaining, and I appreciated the multiple laugh out loud moments. Overall, My Favorite Mistake held my attention, made me laugh and I would definitely read something from this author again.