Summary
As the eldest daughter of famous parents, Luna Hale is anything but normal. She escapes most days inside the fandoms she loves and the fics she writes, and she’s accepted that real life just sucks more than fiction. But there is someone who could rival every swoony man inside her imagination.
And he only lives three floors below her. Too bad he’s incredibly off-limits. Her brother’s bodyguard, eight years older (okay, sometimes, nine), and the son of meth addicts—the tattooed, shameless bodyguard is the only one her dad really hates. But Luna isn’t sure exactly why.
She’s trying not to be hung up on him.
Paul Donnelly is trying not to be hung up on her.
With his life among the security team and his friends at stake, he doesn’t need to make waves among the Hales, especially the notoriously overprotective Loren Hale, the self-proclaimed Emperor of Petty. But when Donnelly’s two best friends set a time and place for a double—no, a “triple” date—the countdown to finding a date is on.
Donnelly has no idea who he should bring. He just knows it can’t be her.
Luna finds herself in the same predicament as bad luck unfolds. Find a date.
And it can’t be him.
Yet, the more they try to stay away, the more the universe has other plans. Nowhere in Luna’s wildest imagination could she have predicted what happens next.
The slow burn heartache, feel-good fandom chats, lifelong friendships, and epic cosmic love of this next installment in the Like Us series will send your hearts into orbit with Luna & Donnelly, and you won’t want to make a landing without them.
Review
I would like to preface this review by saying that out of the currently released eleven Like Us Series books, I’ve only read probably about 2 and a half. This is excluding Misfits Like Us. About midway through reading the earlier books, I’ve decided that these books are not for me, and I didn’t really have a connection to them. Therefore, I stopped. And I decided not to continue with this series, until in the tiny corner of my internet I started seeing whispers about Donnelly and Luna and decided to give this one a go.
At this moment, I don’t want to spend thousands of words talking about the predecessor series and how I feel it compares to the Like Us Series. But what I will say is that in the last book in that original series, we were introduced to Luna Hale and even in that book I had an itching to learn more about her. That chapter alone has stayed with me since 2016, and when I heard that we would finally be getting to know more about Luna, I was like okay maybe, maybe I’ll give this book a try.
Misfits Like Us is truly a Like Us Series addition; however, there are elements within it that make it stand out amongst the rest. For the books that I have read in the series, this one is most definitely my preferred one. And most of that could be contributed to Luna’s family. What I have learned in previous books within the series, that the thing that I crave the most is a beautiful balance between the romance, friendships, and family aspect. This book features a large supporting cast, and I understand how it's impossible to create an authentic balance between those three things. And Misfits Like Us did a decent job. I enjoyed seeing Luna interact with her family considering that I’ve had such a deep connection to them for years. Seeing her father Loren Hale appear brought tears to my eyes.
I also enjoyed seeing Donnelly and his relationship with his friends. It didn’t hit as hard as Luna’s family moments; however, I’m not going back to reread the other books in the series to make it have greater impact. Donnelly also had a sweet friendship with Luna's younger brother, which I loved.
Luna and Donnelly were good. They were pure, and each had such an interesting POV that I really liked being in their heads. It was also heartbreaking at times. Donnelly had an extremely tough life and worked hard to leave that behind. And Luna has several fears about being a failure. I thought both of their emotions were extremely realistic and they both deserved a big hug.
Like I’ve done with all the books that I have read by these authors, once I finished the book, I patiently waited for my best friend to finish so we could discuss. As I waited, I wondered why although I enjoyed the book, I still had this unknown feeling that I wasn’t completely satisfied with it.
I listened to a podcast by the authors before the book came out and knew that this was going to be a slow burn, and I knew that this was going to be a three book journey. I hadn’t had any unrealistic expectations, nor had I filled my head with head cannons. None of those things contributed to my post finishing feelings. And once I got on the phone call and maybe one hour into the call, I realized what the issue was.
At their best, Krista and Becca know how to write a gut wrenching angsty romance that has the ability to stay within the reader's minds for years and years. Within that, is an emotional journey with high stakes, payoff, superb character development, and unbreakable bonds. Misfits Like Us was undeniably one of the most angsty books in the series; however, it was missing a few important qualities. My friend summed it best when she said that characters were not allowed to sit and feel. An emotional situation was presented, and we didn’t dwell on that long enough. And that especially hurts a book when we have two characters like Luna and Donnelly. I can only hope that in the next book in their POVs, that is allowed to happen. I’ll read the other future book(s) in the series to see where Luna and Donnelly will be going.
Despite me reading this book as a standalone, I wouldn’t recommend it if there have been no earlier introductions to this world. Like mentioned before, there’s a lot of history and characters. And a few calls back to the predecessor series that made me feel a great deal of emotions.
Final Thoughts
Misfits Like Us worked in the sense that it provided an entertaining and insightful look into the minds of Luna and Donnelly. They both work as misfits and although there might be “secondhand embarrassment” moments in the books, again it worked since it stayed true to who they are. If we look at this book in terms of the other books in the Like Us Series, it works as well. It’s more focused on the romance aspect, a huge almost too huge cast of characters; the plot lines seem repetitive. We have few moments of character development. The stakes aren’t overly high and most of the characters from the predecessor series are rarely shown or not shown at all, which seems forced and a strong choice to make.
All and all, despite me taking a several year break from this series and vowing to never return, I think I knew in my heart that it was never possible to stay truly away. KB have built such a rich universe that I’ll always consider home, and regardless of where I am in life when I think about a book universe that changed my life, I’ll always go back to this world. Even in the books that I didn’t enjoy, the Like Us Series has tiny moments that always remind me of the original series and keep me wishing that we’ll get back to the magic that really makes KB’s book special. Misfits Like Us, sigh, I’m not sure if it was an attempt to return to the original era, and even if it was there, it wasn’t a wholehearted attempt. But I can’t deny that it's still one of the better books in the Like Us Series. And maybe that’s the power of Luna and Donnelly. Or Loren Hale. I’m not sure. But I didn’t hate the book. And the only word that I can find to describe it when I go through a mental checklist of all the books that I’ve read by the twins and when I compare it to my tremendous love for the original series, is fine. It was fine.
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