While this book was definitely not bad by any means, I never found myself getting super into the story or the characters. I love YA but this felt very immature to me.

This book wasn't for me. The characters were not very likable and it was hard for me to want them to even end up together. I was bummed because I love a good celeb romance!

Hollywood, childhood betrayal and high school valedictorians collide in this teen romance.

Alexa became instant best friends with Carson in middle school but didn't realize her true feelings until the night she betrayed him. Now he's all over the movies as bad boy Cayden McKnight, who dates models and is a jerk to everyone. Alexa's new best friend Lindsey decides that Alexa must make amends, and convinces Alexa to track him down, despite Alexa's long-term but faltering relationship with the reliable John. But Cayden still seems to want nothing to do with her, and Alexa must decide how far she'll go to make things right.

Told partly through flashbacks, the sweetness of the early interactions between Carson and Alexa provide the perfect contrast to how Cayden treats her now. But Alexa - with the encouragement of Lindsey - keeps pushing, trying to find the sweet boy she once knew under the walled-off celebrity demeanor.

Perfectly paced, with reveals in all the right places, this one was a delight until the very end.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Y'all - I am so disappointed and sad about this book.

While I haven't read anything by Heather Buchta before, Chasing After Knight was easily on my top anticipated reads of 2022 list. It looked like a fun YA contemporary with childhood-friends-to-lovers and also a famous movie star love interest. However, this book was nothing like I hoped and easily one of the most disappointing novels I've read.

I'm honestly not sure where to start, I didn't write any positive notes while reading.

First, there's Alexa, the protagonist. Alexa's personality consists of working hard for school, being a bad friend, and making questionable choices. She spends thousands of dollars of her college fund in the name of finding Cayden and "fixing" his bad boy reputation through good deeds (like buying people's dinner, etc). This baffled me for SO many reasons. How did her parents not notice? How did she throw away her college money without thinking twice? How is she 17 and acting so irresponsibly? Other highlights about Alexa include that she spends a chapter BARTENDING as a minor. She also drives a stranger's car home at night to bait Cayden into coming after her. She frequently makes bad choices that put herself in danger without thinking. To top that all off, her character growth is minimal and by the end I never felt like she realized how horrible all of her choices were (and at times, illegal!)

She also flies on a plane alone without her parents finding out, makes an eating disorder comment about another women just because she's a model (super unwarranted), throws her phone against a wall because a school rejected her for college.

There were also a lot of moments where Alexa's attitude towards Cayden would be considered creepy and stalkerish... but she's a girl so it's totally fine! She tracks his favorite clubs and attends them to find him, finds his home address, and even physically chases after him once when he ran away because she wouldn't leave him alone. If a man did that, we would all call him creepy and a stalker. But a 17 year old Alexa Brooks does it and we're supposed to find it charming and endearing?

It also took until 73% through the book for the two main characters to have a pleasant interaction. It felt like a complete shift from Cayden hating her to suddenly being really into Alexa. There was no chemistry between them and no real build up to the relationship. One interaction they hated each other and the next Cayden decides he's done hating her and they make out.

When they finally get together Alexa ignores her entire life (friends, family, school, etc) for this boy.

Another one of Alexa's charming traits is being a horrible friend. As a student council member her one responsibility is to order the DJ for the school dance. After blowing off her friends' feelings for the entire book she forgets to the order the DJ. As you can imagine, her friends aren't too excited that she ruined their Senior Prom (or Homecoming, can't remember). Her friends become even more upset with her and decide on some time and space. I couldn't get myself to support Alexa throughout most of this novel, but here especially. Her friends did nothing wrong and Alexa was horrible to them.

But, anyways, after her closest friend feels ready to talk to Alexa again suddenly Alexa is the victim, gets petty and tells her friend she can't talk to her.

In the end Alexa gets a slap on the wrist for everything she has done. Which includes... Spending $2000 of her college fund, not getting into college, flying alone without permission, stealing a school vehicle for a night, and ignoring all her friends. I won't spoil the ending, but let's just say that she never really sees any consequences for her actions.

And if you're into spoilers - Rich movie star boyfriend pays her the $2000 back and somehow gets her into the college that rejected her.

This book was a train wreck. The characters are poorly designed and Alexa is a bad person. Cayden is also a bad person. Their relationship was poorly written and had no build up. I also can't help but think of Alexa's white and middle class privileges in this book. She acts carelessly and thoughtlessly. I can't help but think that her being a middle class white teenager contributes heavily to her inability to logically understand the choices she makes (like spending $2000!!!!!! of her college fund!!!! to "fix" a celebrity's reputation!!!! WHAT). Also to my understanding Alexa has no money that isn't part of her college fund and that also confused me a lot.

Let's also not mention that she is chasing after Cayden while having a boyfriend for most of the book. Yikes.

My heart hurts for the kind of nostalgia and love that this book describes. I always wanted to go to a sleep away camp and have a kind of once in a lifetime romance like this book describes. This book is basically starstruck but with heaps of nostalgia and i absolutely loved it. I loved the way that Buchta went back and forth between the past and the present to give the reader a sense of the trepidation and fear that one encounters when they realize how big feelings can be. I also heavily related to how much pressure alexa put on herself to be perfect and to become something other than a huge mistake. This book made me feel a yearning for a love that i probably will never have but reminded me of why these kinds of books warm my heart.

“He met love and walked away, i can’t, i can’t walk away.”

4.5 stars

Contemporary reads are the easiest for me to binge, and I did that with this one. The synopsis and cover grabbed my attention.

Alexa is best friends with Carson Knight, but events happen to make them stop being friends. And now she wants to be more even though they barely talk. So sets in motion her deciding to win him back. And with him now being famous and all.

The story is told back and forth from 3 years to today. We see the events that unfold between them. From friends, to enemies, to secret lovers, this book is about second chances and redemption. It was cute but I also felt Alexa was immature for her age.

Alexa meets Carson at summer camp going into her freshmen year who she has an instant connection and becomes best friends with. The problem is, at only 14, feelings are confusing and when she realizes her feelings go beyond frienship, she inadvertantly makes a horrific mistake. A move out of town and three years of her lazer focued on a rigid routine and accademics, all to put Carson out of her mind, he is at the forefront. Not so easy to push him out of her mind when he is Hollywood's biggest star. In pursuit to make amends this is such a fun, quick paced YA read. Being from LA and living in Las Vegas, I loved the atmospheric descriptions. It was a fun storyline to get attached to that had you rooting for the main character, Alexa. While there were some far fetched elements given their ages, it was a fun adventure read of first love and the hopeful sentiment of as the author says of an ending “where things can only get better.”

Chasing After Knight is serviceable wish-fulfillment narrative that is fodder for the ever growing YA contemporary shelves.

This was so much fun! I loved Heather Buchta's debut book and this one was so enjoyable too! You do have to suspend your disbelief for this one a little bit because our main character makes a few decisions, like flying without her parents finding out, that probably wouldn't work in the real world; for the sake of the story it's entertaining, just not realistic. Alexa and Carson have a second-chance, enemies-to-lovers romance, and it's so much fun! In the beginning of the book, you find out what went wrong the first time around (but told as flashbacks), and in the second half you see them start to get reunited. Their relationship progression was fun to witness, though it seemed Carson was so realistic in the past narrative but lost some personality in the present-day one; I really wanted to see more of him present-day. I also felt like Alexa didn't really answer for some of her mistakes at the end of the book and I wish there was a bit more closure in that regard. Overall though, wow this was a blast! I highly recommend it when it releases for fans of second chance romance and Hollywood love interests.

Alexa Brooks has her whole life planned out. After meeting and then losing her best friend, Carson Knight, due to her impulsiveness, she’s decided to play it safe. That means becoming valedictorian, winning all her cross country meets and dating a football player. But memories of Carson come flooding back when she writes an assignment about him, and suddenly she finds herself wanting to reconnect with her former best friend. Problem is, Carson Knight, or rather, Cayden McKnight is now a famous actor with a bad reputation.

I did not enjoy this book at all. Reading it was borderline painful for me. Alexa, despite being the literal valedictorian, is very stupid and makes several decisions that a smart person would not make, such as spending thousands of dollars to better the reputation of someone she doesn’t know anymore. Carson, her love interest, is an actual jerk, and his attempts to redeem himself made me hate him more. The side characters, Lindsey and Heidi, were the best parts of the book since they were the only people who could think, but their dialogue was very cringe-y at certain points (most notably when one of them spelled out “WTH”).

The beginning of the book switches between the present day and flashbacks of Carson and Alexa when they were younger, and while Carson and Alexa’s banter was cute, I could not connect the Carson of the past to the present “bad boy” celebrity Cayden McKnight. Cayden was so unlikeable and infuriating, and at several points towards the end, when they are together, he straight-up gaslights Alexa and treats her horribly. I understand that he’s supposed to keep their relationship under wraps because he’s a celebrity, but come on, there’s gotta be a better way to treat your girlfriend. Especially one that you’ve been leaving subliminal messages to using the titles of the movies you’ve been in. (I’m not the only one that thinks that’s ridiculous, right?) The whole concept of these two being obsessed with each other since they were 14 years old, enough to change the entire course of their lives, is laughable to me. Maybe I’m just not a romantic.

I also disliked this book because of what wasn’t in it. As a queer POC (specifically South Asian), I noticed that there was something uniquely “white" about this book that I just couldn’t connect to. For example, Alexa’s parents barely blink when they find out she’s spent thousands of dollars from her college fund without letting them know. Her school doesn’t do anything other than suspend her from the student council when they find out she bartended as a minor. Somehow, she was able to buy PLANE TICKETS??? without her parents knowing and TAKE A FLIGHT ACROSS THE STATE after telling her parents she was going to her friend’s house for a sleepover. All of these things would not be possible at all if Alexa or her parents were South Asian, and because of that, I couldn’t connect to her at all.

The lack of LGBT characters wasn’t that much of an issue, since I understand that this is a straight romance book, but what I can critique the book on is avoiding the topic altogether. There was a spin-the-bottle scene in one of the flashbacks, and when the bottle landed on two people of the same gender, they just respun. This isn’t that big of a deal, but it felt so much like erasure and I couldn’t shake it for the rest of the book.

I understand that having characters of color or queer characters in a book like this isn’t a priority to some people, but it’s something I feel strongly about, and this review would feel dishonest if I didn’t mention these aspects. There are several other reasons that I disliked this book, and my notes have things like “how does she keep driving 300 miles in a days time” and “this is literally stalker behavior,” but I hope I’ve said enough to show that I would really not recommend this book to anyone.

I rarely rate books this low, but this book was not for me. This girl basically stalks the boy she was horrible too (but in a twisted way actually loved while going out with his best friend), and is demanding to be forgiven. It’s enemies to a complete 180 all of a sudden and then they’re in love. The girl continues to be really insecure, secretive, and pouty. Also, she had a boyfriend when she did the stalking. Just, no. I wanted more for Carson.

- 3.75

A celebrity/hollywood romance but make it friends to enemies to lovers sprinkled in with a little bit of that second chance romance goodness.

It follows high school senior Alexa Brooks, who is essentially Miss Perfect. Valedictorian? Yup. Star of the track team? Please. She has her future planned out to a T. That is until a school project forces her to unearth memories of her past, like her ex best friend Carson Knight who, funnily enough, is currently one of the hottest and most popular celebrities in the country. Alexa tries to confront Carson, now Cayden, about an incident from the past –which is way harder than you’d think– all while navigating her current high school relationships and what she really wants out of life.

This book was so cute. I stayed up until almost 5 am reading this book and could not put it down (granted, I started reading it at midnight ..so). I finished it in one sitting. There were times when Alexa felt like a really relatable character for me, in terms of how she organises every single aspect of her life down to the smallest detail, but then decides to let loose a little bit. Did I end up face-palming a lot at my screen when Alexa constantly kept making those very hurtful mistakes? Yes. It was super frustrating. I really loved the goofy, carefree relationship Carson and Alexa had. It was fun to read about, even if I did feel like Carson forgave Alexa way too easily.

I think from the beginning my biggest concern was how the timelines of the past and present would overlap. Personally I didn’t love the segue because to me, the parts that were talking about the past felt a little too random and was almost like they were clustered mainly in the first few chapters. I would’ve loved it if they were spaced out a little more.

Overall, I had so much fun reading this and definitely recommend checking it out if you’re looking for something sweet and quick to read.

thank you to penguin teen for an early copy !!

I’ve never rooted for two people to get back together so hard in my LIFE. My poor heart! It’s too full for my chest. I loved every single second of this and there were times when my heart dropped with some of the twists that really should not be in a contemporary! I wish there were way more scenes of Alexa and Carson but if you’re not reading this, you are seriously missing out.

I loved it! It was such a good read. I thought the characters were well written, and their growth and arcs were well paced. I enjoyed the way the conflits were presented to us the reader! Highly recommend

This book curbed my desire to read a "famous person falls for normal person" trope while also having a heart to it. The characters are relatable teenagers on a mission to do the right thing...Even if that means doing some wrong things to get there.

I really enjoyed reading this book that was full of characters trying to do the wrong thing, but continually falling short. It made the characters relatable and the book more emotional. It was also great to see the main character start the book as a new person and slowly develop into her own self, however flawed that may be. It was a refreshing change to how characters usually develop.

Alexa, our main character was difficult for me to understand for a minute. When we first meet her, she's not the girl she used to be. She's hardened, successful on paper, and boring. Then, as the book goes on, we see her begin to transform into the girl she used to be. Problem is, she makes a lot of mistakes on her way to re-becoming that girl. Like, a lot. It was hard to stand by as she made all these errors, but I also had to applaud her for having the courage to do what she did.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out how much I loved Alexa's friends. She really didn't deserve them. Heidi and Lindsay are so supportive of Alexa, even when she's doing a bunch of crazy things. They lie to her parents, make fake websites, and drive to other states for her. I really loved that they were a part of this book.

Now onto Carson/Cayden. We get flashbacks at the beginning of the book so we can understand what went wrong between Alexa and Carson. I loved Carson during those flashbacks. He was charming, sweet, and funny. Then we meet present-day Carson and I'm a little thrown off. Don't get me wrong. I love a broody and angry love interest just like the next girl, but by the end, I still wasn't won over. I didn't hate him, but something about him just wasn't completely convincing me.

We don't really get to the romantic part of this book until about halfway in which was kinda sad for me. That being said, the book was not boring up until that point. I just wish we could've seen Carson a little bit more up to that point. Also, honestly, I didn't love the ending. I feel like there was still a lot to work out. The grand gesture was amazing and made me tear up a little, but something felt unfinished.

Overall, I did enjoy this book. I gave a lot of critique in this review, but this was a nice book. I'd recommend reading it with low expectations and knowing that there's a possibility that you won't like Alexa.

Chasing After Knight follows Alexa, a Las Vegas high school senior, as she attempts to apologize to an old friend for an unfortunate incident that happened the summer before high school. However, the friend she needs to apologize to is now an A-list movie star. She is lucky that her best friend Lindsey is obsessed with celebrities, otherwise, Alexa would have no idea where to begin her search for her former friend.

After reading the synopsis of this book, I thought it was going to be as predictable as most books in this genre are. I was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn't. Is the ending predictable? Yes. Did I predict how Alexa would solve her dilemma and make amends? No. I couldn’t anticipate how she would run into her former friend because he is a movie star. The winter dance that keeps getting mentioned is where a miraculous meetup would happen in other books, but that wasn’t the case with Chasing After Knight. It was a surprise when and how the initial encounter happened. As the stakes grew, I found myself rooting for Alexa and hoping she could say the right words when the opportunity arose.

I found Alexa’s goal relatable. She made a mistake, then moved states, eliminating any chance of making things right, especially since he was not answering any forms of communication. Sure, it was a move from California to Nevada, but that's still a distance to overcome. Instead of allowing herself to drown in her guilt, she tried to bury it by taking on an unreasonable amount of schoolwork, clubs, and college prep. She picked a college not because of its programs but because it was as far away from California as she could get. Alexa wanted to run away from the situation and her guilt over what happened. While this may seem extreme, it makes sense that this is how a teenage girl reacted to the situation. It also makes sense that as a chapter of her life is coming to a close, she thought about her initial decisions and how she handled her circumstances at the time.

Surprisingly, I also found the story relatable. I certainly have never had to right a wrong with a friend that became a movie star, but I have had chance encounters that changed the direction of my life, which I feel is a great way to describe how Chasing After Knight ended. All of Alexa’s encounters with her old friend change the direction of her life. Although we learn in the end that it was for the better, at times it feels like she's destroying everything she worked for during her high school years, including her other friendships. Alexa is digging herself out of several difficult situations and as the reader, you have to watch and see if she'll make it out unscathed. It was difficult to read at times because you’re upset she's treating the people in her life that way, but it made me root for her, and a positive outcome, even more.

Chasing After Knight is a fun read. It’s different from those in the genre because you can’t always predict how Alexa’s resolution will come, even though you know things will likely end in her favor. Alexa and her story is a great read if you are looking for a happy ending that isn’t a straight line from start to finish.

*4.5

friends to enemies to lovers AND second chance romance? unparalleled.

y’all. i ate this book up in a matter of hours. it consumed me to the point where i told three school friends about it and they got invested in how the story ended. it was so beyond entertaining, and i became so invested in the characters that all i needed to know was what happened to them.

chasing after knight follows alexa. three years ago, she was best friends (and maybe more) with carson knight. but after a falling out, they stopped speaking. carson grows up to become a teen heartthrob actor (and notorious bad boy) by the name of cayden mcknight. a school assignment causes alexa to think of carson again, and she sets off on a quest to reconcile with the boy she once knew, despite how cold he may seem now.

i’m in love with alexa and carson. there’s a lot of flashbacks to when they first met and became best friends, and if they aren’t the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. seeing carson’s change from golden retriever boy to bad boy over the years, but knowing that alexa is able to bring out his soft side. bad boy with a hard of gold!!! they have such a unique connection, and get each other like no other. inside jokes? banter? all of it, yes.

alexa is a great main character. she’s strong-willed, brave, ambitious, and just a little stubborn. she’s definitely not perfect, but i loved her nonetheless. carson is a character that showed a lot of growth, and it was great to see him accept his vulnerabilities. i am also in love with him ok thanks. the side characters in this book are all really strong — this book really emphasizes friendship and i love that.

only a few critiques! this is all subjective, as some people might love the things i’m about to comment on lol. i got some secondhand embarrassment at a couple scenes — they were written well but it’s just something that i don’t personally vibe with! also (bc my friend pointed this out) — i know it’s fiction, but there’s something at the end that i would’ve liked to be a tad more realistic.

part of me wishes that the ending had more of alexa repairing things after straining her relationships with her friends and getting off track with her schoolwork/extracurriculars, but as i think about it more, i don’t really need that. all the scenes of her doing that are valuable, and the things left more open are definitely there for a reason. it makes things more realistic and i like the idea of her friends still loving her, but not completely forgiving her right away.

this was so much fun to read tho!! would def recommend :DD

thank you to penguin random house and netgalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

CW: underage drinking

I enjoyed Chasing After Knight with an average 3 star rating. Most YA contemporary's either are a 5 star rating that are too cute it makes me cry, or lacking excitement and results in me not really having interest in it and I think that's where CAK stands, I had no real issues with the story but I think it just isn't for me.

This book reads like an Episode story (the choose-your-own-adventure iPhone game). The characters, motivations, and events make no sense, it is much too long, and I couldn't stop reading it. (I stayed up until 2 am racing through a solid half the book, which I never do.) Alexa was an interesting, complicated character, but Carson kind of sucked and the name "Cayden McKnight" made me laugh every time--and the host of friends felt largely interchangeable and flat. There's also a sense of Boston College, a perfectly good but not exceptionally famous or highly ranked school, being treated with the same weight and reputation and drive as a much more selective university, and it took me out quite a bit. (Maybe I just have invested too much time in thinking about college admissions--but has Alexa looked at Tufts? I think it would be perfect for her. Just saying.)

This reminded me a little bit of a Wattpad story (but not in a bad way). Alexa and Carson are definitely adorable. I’d love to read more about them.