Book Review | Broken Knight

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️1/2

Title: Broken Knight

Author: L.J. Shen

Format: eBook (Kindle Unlimited)

Pages: 367

Categories: Coming of Age, New Adult, Romance, Drug Abuse, Sexual Situations

Not all love stories are written the same way. Ours had torn chapters, missing paragraphs, and a bittersweet ending.

Luna Rexroth is everyone’s favorite wallflower.

Sweet.
Caring.
Charitable.
Quiet.
Fake.
Underneath the meek, tomboy exterior everyone loves (yet pities) is a girl who knows exactly what, and who, she wants—namely, the boy from the treehouse who taught her how to curse in sign language.
Who taught her how to laugh.
To live.
To love.
Knight Cole is everyone’s favorite football hero.
Gorgeous.
Athletic.
Rugged.
Popular.
Liar.

This daredevil hell-raiser could knock you up with his gaze alone, but he only has eyes for the girl across the street: Luna.

But Luna is not who she used to be. She doesn’t need his protection anymore.
When life throws a curveball at All Saints’ golden boy, he’s forced to realize not all knights are heroes.

Sometimes, the greatest love stories flourish in tragedy. 

Broken Knight is the second book in the All Saints High series by L.J. Shen was actually one I was looking forward to because of Luna. When Luna appeared in book one, Pretty Reckless, I was fascinated with her because she’s mute.

And this book started off cute with childhood memories of Knight Cole and Luna Rexroth and I was feeling all soft about them and my heart was saying “awww“, you know? They are the meant-to-be type of love, come on, you know those. So things looked promising. Then it would go back into present day and I was like…ugh….

It is a new adult novel, because though Knight and his friends are in high school, they live pretty fast when it comes to sex and girls. Knight is the quarterback on the high school football team, the girls love him, but he loves Luna – except…she doesn’t know it since he has girls hanging around him all the time. Luna is a year older than Knight and about to start college, and she’s always loved Knight, but knows about his reputation. She is a selective mute due to some severe anxiety and traumatic experiences in her childhood. She and Knight have been best friends since…forever. So why can’t they figure out how to get together?

Drama. Angst. Lots and lots of it.

Usually, I’m ready for the broken characters from this author, she’s known for them in her books. But I think this book was angst overload. Or am I just too old for this book, or series because these are high school “kids”. I think at one point in my life, I would have gobbled this book up – but I’m in a stage of being over BS. 😂 If the point of the book was the message that LIFE IS SHORT…then damn it, Luna and Knight could have figured out how to be honest with each other since day one, I think.

They both love each other, but they have that back and forth relationship, you know what I’m talking about? They miscommunicate, then Knight takes his revenge on Luna, then Luna does something because she assumes (but do I blame her for thinking Knight is a sleeping around? Hell no.) The characters are young, coming of age and dealing with a lot of things outside of each other. Anyway for two people who are the supposedly the best of friends and communicate without words so well…it was frustrating to see them not be on the same page when it came to one another.

I didn’t read Knight’s parents’ story which is Ruckus. But I felt like I caught up on it by reading the book. That part of the story was sad, but even then I didn’t even shed a tear because the back and forth with Knight and Luna was too much for me. I read past midnight and realized, damn, the story had 10% to go and you know what? I shut my fire tablet down. I was done for the night…I didn’t want more back and forth, I was tired. Usually with 10% to go, I power through…not with this one.

I picked it up the next day and yeah…the ending was bittersweet with a happily ever after but I didn’t feel happy. I’m glad it came to an end. Glad Luna and Knight figured things out – they got the sex figured out for sure. It did make me wonder what will happen with Dixie, Knight’s real mom…her story was sad and the way Knight treated her at times made me want to slap him. I wanted to slap a lot of people in this book. 🤣

If you are a fan of characters that are broken, hot messes (I will admit that guy on the book cover is pretty hot 🤷🏻‍♀️)…with tons of angst, you will definitely like this book. For me it was just okay, I may read Vaughn’s story – it’s kinda interesting already, but I have no interest in Hunter’s story haha. We shall see, this is probably a mood read kind of thing for me, so that will probably determine if I continue the series.