Misfits in Love
I think all books are for any season. Some you may be more interested in reading by a cozy fire and others may be more inspired to read in the bright sunshine on a beach somewhere. Where and whenever you like to read, Misfits in Love by S.K. Ali is a book you can take anywhere.
Personally, I read this book in one day while on vacation out in the beautiful sunshine. Misfits in Love is a page turner readers will not be able to put down. We get to visit back with Janna and her family from S.K. Ali’s first book Saints and Misfits (which you may want to read before this one. Totally not necessary but there are definitely references to the storyline of Saints and Misfits that you may want to know more about). Janna is staying at her father’s house preparing for her brother Mohammed’s nikah ceremony to Sarah. The whole family is so excited for the day and all pitching in to make sure it is a success. She has spent 3 weeks away from her mother and is excited to reunite with her and she is finally ready to reveal her feelings for sweet and kind Nuah. As readers find in all teen romances, things don’t exactly play out the way Janna expects, leading to some pretty intense revelations and some incredible growth for Janna.
I loved the potential love interests for Janna. There’s Nuah, sweet consistent Nuah, who was there for Janna when her world felt like it was falling apart, Haytham, seemingly perfect Haytham, who can bake, sing and can wrangle a kindergartener with the bat of his eyelids and Layth a brooding, dour but surprising character that forces Janna to think deeper about the people around her. Readers will be swept away by the kindness of all the characters and how they show Janna so much about the world around her.
Janna coming to the realization about her father’s racist attitudes is a very impactful moment in the story. Her father holds very outdated ideas about people, including Nuah who is a black Muslim. S.K. Ali’s examination of Muslim attitudes towards others within the same faith is very interesting and thought provoking. Readers will appreciate how S.K. Ali’s characters are forcing their elders to address their long held, racist views. There is questioning from many characters, feelings of exclusion when in fact everyone is coming together to celebrate love and they are celebrating not to the exclusion of others but to share joy. There is a lovely moment between Janna and her mother in which her mother states, “When you see the world as divided…it’s not about expanding hearts-it’s about shrinking our capacity to love” It’s a poignant moment in the story all readers will embrace. When we open our hearts to the beauty of diversity we are expanding our capacity to love with all of ourselves.
I read Misfits in Love in one day and was totally lost in the story. I was there in Mystic Lake although I have never been to Indiana, it felt like the lakes of my childhood. I could picture the big house and the barn and the tacky hotel in town. There were so many moments I could connect with without being Muslim. Love is a powerful connective tissue between a reader and a story filled with it.
