Legendborn

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
Published by Margaret K. McElderry Books on September 15, 2020
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Pages: 512
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 1534441603
Goodreads

After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.
A flying demon feeding on human energies.
A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down.
And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw.
The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates.
She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.

I feel like it has been SOOOO long since I fell this in love with a YA fantasy book. But omg you GUYS!!! This book is so good!!! I had seen a bunch of my bookstagram friends reading and loving it, so I was expecting to like it as well. But I didn’t know JUST how great it would be.

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The Basics!

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Let’s start with the basics – this is an Arthurian legend retelling, set in present day North Carolina. You must know by now how much of a sucker I am for retellings. I LOVE THEM. Yeah. I haven’t read an Arthur retelling in a while, so I was super excited for this one. I feel like this particular legend/tale is a good one to twist and make it your own.

The plot pacing was perfect! It is very fast paced, with a very good balance of action and down time. I loved how the non action sections still moved the story along quickly.

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World-building

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At first, the magic and the whole world is very confusing. However, this works really well, because we are basically learning about everything at the same pace as Bree, the protagonist. We get more and more details as Bree gets more entrenched in the magical world of “Legendborns.” The world building is one of the great strengths of this novel, in my opinion. The magic is really cool in the way it manifests in different family lines, and in those outside of family lines. Also all the demons!! They sounded so cool (I mean, also creepy though haha).

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Characters and character ordeals

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Another great aspect of the novel is the characters. The diversity!!! I feel like this is a book that really gets it right, in the sense that reading about all these characters really reflected the diversity I see in my own life and in my friends. We obviously have a Black girl as our protagonist, and she’s wonderful. There are also many many queer characters (bi, gay, sapphic, nonbinary) and they are never reduced to just their personalities being just their queerness.

The author does a wonderful job of portraying what it is like to deal with grief. At the beginning of the novel, Bree’s mother is killed in a car accident, and Bree deals with this grief through the whole novel. It was especially interesting to see how she dealt with it vs. her father, even though we only get small glimpses of her father. I also appreciated the discussion of seeking out mental health help. The author writes about how it is something that is stigmatized, especially in Black communities.

Obviously since the main character is Black and living in North Carolina (though this would be true anywhere in the US really), she experiences racism both outright and more “subtle”. I put that in quotes, because it’s only subtle to those not experiencing racism. The author honestly shows how hard it is to live in a world that is catered to white people. For example, there are physical reminders (such as statues and university buildings) that reinforce this idea of white superiority.

However, the author also does a really good job of celebrating the ways that Black people resist and thrive in the face of all the things that are set against them.

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I’m going to just stop here, because to be honest I could keep writing about this book for a long time – but I don’t want to keep you here forever haha. I want you to go read the book instead of reading more of a review!!!! Have you picked this one up yet? If not, has my review convinced you to do so?? Hahaha 🙂