Alphas Like Us by Krista and Becca Ritchie | Rating: ★★★★★

Is there anything better than a new book by Krista and Becca Ritchie? Okay, okay.  You got me. Logically speaking, there are a lot of things that would tie pretty close to being as good but not quite on its level. I'm so profoundly attached to the world that the Ritchie Sisters have created for us--from its beginnings in Addicted all the way to Like Us, I'm so attached to these characters. Alphas Like Us reminds me why... not that I needed the reminder to begin with.

First of all, it's impossible for me to not love every last (main) character in this series. I've tried. I can't. Both Krista and Becca Ritchie have such a deep understanding of what makes a person, well, a person. And this is the best way to describe the characterizations of the cast of Alphas Like Us. We aren't cheated out of flaws. There's no such thing as perfection. You'll swoon. You'll cry. You'll groan in frustration. You'll see signs of life and there's not much else to say beyond what I've said in the past--Krista and Becca Ritchie write their characters in true-to-life living colour; they may as well be your very best friend. Sometimes, you half expect them to slide from the pages and pop around for a chat.

Or maybe that's just me. I do have an attachment to these characters. It's kind of impossible not to.

Like his parents before him, Maximoff Hale is flawed and intriguing. He is alive. You want to know everything about him. Most importantly, you want for him to live a happy life--and you want that happily ever after with his boyfriend, Farrow Keene.

(Who, of course, you love, too.)

One of the best things about his story in the Like Us series is we don't see him as just Lily and Loren's oldest son. We saw his conception, his birth and his early years throughout the stories that spanned his families books. By the time Damaged Like Us rolls around, Maximoff is an adult who'd grown up in the spotlight (thrown into an impossible life that no one really had a choice about) and was frankly just trying to do his best.

We see him not as a child, but as the individual that he is. In this time, we learned things about him--his fears, his fiercely protective nature, his flaws, his desires and most importantly his heart. I knew I would love him from the start, but the further we dived into those flaws (the similarities between him and his parents) and watched as he fell in love? Swoon. There's something so likable about Maximoff that I'm not sure what kind of monster wouldn't root for him.

(I love my bisexual son!)

Alphas Like Us picks up quite quickly after Lovers Like Us. Maximoff and Farrow are exactly as we want them to be--flawed, happy and thriving.

As their relationship remains steady and progresses as any good romance should, we learn more about Maximoff's relationships with his family and cousins. As per usual, the side characters are more than just background noise to the plotlines featured. We get glimpses of what's to come outside of their story but the central plots go beyond family and coming of age. There's a lot of bumps in between time, but it's nothing they can't handle together.

This time, we see Farrow's growth take an unexpected (but not entirely so) change of pace. After one night threatens to tear him and Maximoff apart, and one of them is seriously injured, Farrow decides that--while he loves his job as a bodyguard--he should have never fully given up on medicine. I loved the change of pace because there's something so relatable about there being two massive parts to one person and in Farrow's case, medicine is a part of him that he can't outrun forever. 

While the journey has been split for both of them, I felt as though Farrow's journey took the forefront this time around and Alphas Like Us allowed him to shine in a way that we knew he always would. I feel like his character growth left me feeling like I did in Hothouse Flower, watching Daisy search and search for herself. Or even in Kiss The Sky, as Connor discovered the path to accepting--and to giving--love.

That's what I love most about these books. It's all about family. It's all about love. It's all about series of connections and mistakes and triumphs. Alphas Like Us feels like a classic Ritchie Squared novel in the sense that it tugs at your heartstrings and keeps you attached to this family. One would think that, at this point, there would be no more stories left to tell--but boy, is there ever.

I'm excited to see Maximoff and Farrow again in the future.

But I'm also ready to see some of Maximoff's family take center stage.

Krista and Becca Ritchie have done it again. Alphas Like Us is full of heart and soul. It's impossible to put down and even more impossible to forget.