Beautiful and Broken

Shattered by Elizabeth Lee

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Song for this Read: Joey by Sugarland


I started Shattered and by page two my heart was already wrenching for Alyssa Boyd. A newly graduated high school senior, Alyssa carries a lot of guilt and pain on her shoulders. It has been nine months since her best friend Garret died and her other, Jesse, left her without so much as a goodbye. Garret and Jesse had taken a sad little Alyssa Boyd under their wing in 8th grade and ever since they have done everything to keep her smiling. Jesse has been in love with Alyssa since he first laid eyes on her but has never made his move from best friend to boyfriend. Nine months after he left in the wake of his best friend’s untimely death, Jesse is back in town. And this time he isn’t chickening out.
When Alyssa Boyd is first presented she is a mess of raw emotions and hurt and anger. Her voice is desperate and delicate and my heart broke for her. As Jesse entered the story and told his side more of the pieces fit together and as they both retold tales of their escapades with Garret I found myself totally falling for these two amazing boys who would do anything to see Alyssa smile. I could help but see them as two big brothers to Alyssa, always looking out for her. The whole first half of this book, two words kept coming to mind to describe it: Beautiful and Broken. But somewhere in the middle there the beauty was lost. The story just became broken and frustrating. I would read one chapter full of Alyssa doing stupid things and get to the next chapter just to tell me everything that just happened in the last chapter from his side. It was going nowhere. So when Things finally did come around I noticed something else was lost. No long was the story about them being broken either, it seemed that I was just to forget about the fact that all of a week ago Alyssa could walk into the gym because of memories of Garret and now all the sudden Jesse is here and she is completely fine, she is over it. Well that was disappointing, because what I was really looking forward to most was the two of them working through moving past their pain of losing Garret together. The storyline seemed to turn from this brooding, grief filled plot full of raw emotions to this fluff piece where everyone is just looking for trouble where it doesn’t need to be. It was really disappointing.
I’m giving this book four stars (out of five) because the beginning really was spectacular, it had me want to cry and smile all at the same time. The second half had potential, I just feel that the essence of the book was lost and that is saddening to me. But overall it was a great read.




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