Legendborn

After an accident takes the life of Bree’s mother, her life begins to fall apart. Bree bottles up all the anger and grief she feels so tight she is unable to move on. To escape the memories and anything that may trigger what she’s hidden inside herself, she enrolls in a beginning college program at UNC-Chapel Hill. But her first night on campus will reveal a hidden world of magic, demons, and ancient Arthurian legends. A world that may have taken her mother’s life. Determined to find the truth about her mother’s death, Bree infiltrates the world of the Legendborn. And as she forges her own path within the secret society, she will uncover hidden truths about her ancestry and her mother’s death.

There is a heavy dose of world-building as the Legendborn story unfolds. Between how the hidden world of magic works, and the Legendborn secret society itself, be braced for a large amount of information. However, don’t fret, because even though readers are given a lot to process, the story will build on what is given to the reader. The plot will call back to pieces of history and world-building as Bree journeys farther into the depths of Legendborn society, accenting what the reader knows with plenty of action and drama.

A wide variety of relationships are displayed throughout this story; familial, friendship, and community alike. When Bree is among the Legendborn community, there are many displays of racism, microaggression, and unconscious bias toward Bree. Tracy Deonn has woven these eye-opening experiences so well into the story, and it is heartbreaking to see them happen. But they happen every day in our world, not just in the world of Legendborn. I grew angered at members of the society who treated Bree as if she were less simply for having a different skin color. Bree did gain a support system within the society, but prejudice is long ingrained in a number of the society members.

Learning to cope with the loss of a parent is another strong theme within Legendborn. By bottling everything up, Bree is unable to process the emotions raging inside of her mind. Frustration and anger quickly rise to the surface and impact how she deals with people and situations. Witnessing Bree uncover her family’s history to learn how to let go and allow herself to experience grief was powerful.

There are so many elements to Legendborn, and the amount of challenges Bree faces are astounding. Seeing her develop and overcome these challenges was as heartbreaking as it was rewarding. And with the way Legendborn ended, I cannot wait to see what direction the next story takes.

I want this cover as a print on my wall!!!

I've been eyeing this cover since it was released, and finally finally I got around to reading it. This book was AWESOME. Great characters (absolutely in love with the MC), and the story as a whole was just so well plotted and beautiful. Loved.

DNF at page 127. Not interested

Maravilloso, me hizo darle 5⭐ y nunca he hecho eso. Primeramente me llamó la atención porque usa la leyenda arturica como base de su mundo mágico y no he sabido sobre otro libro que haya hecho eso. Creo que es una idea genial.

Me encanta la trama y la forma en que están escritos los personajes, Bree es joven pero no es odiosa o al menos a mi no se me hace odiosa (que es un problema que he tenido antes con otros personajes), la inmersión en el mundo mágico de este universo no significa que el mundo "real" se deje de lado y aprecio mucho que los personajes de este lado sigan siendo recurrentes y no solo tengan alguna línea de apoyo a la protagonista cada 7 capítulos.

Honestamente no se me ocurre nada que me hubiese gustado de forma diferente y en mi opinión eso dice todo. Solo me me entristece un poco que sé que me va a costar conseguir el siguiente libro de la saga.

I’m so happy I finally read Legendborn! 🗡️🔥💫 I really appreciate the representation in the book, as well as the interesting mix of history, slavery, root magic, and King Arthur. Bree was an absolute badass, and I loved her character growth. The pace felt a little slow at times, but the fight scenes definitely made up for it. Overall, I really enjoyed the book!

This book has a lot of things you need to pay attention to and remember in order not to get lost at some points, but the real and main heft of what is happening in this story seems to take place in the latter half. That's where the threads start to really weave together and connect. I cannot say I was surprised by any of the twists and turns it took, but it was a fun ride nevertheless.

Look, I tried. I really did. This was my first contemporary piece by a POC so I was incredibly excited. Got up to chapter 9. Could not physically keep going.

The MC is one of the most boring and blah beings to be put on the page. I'm sorry.

So good!! Can’t wait to read the next one! Some predictable tropes but was fascinating!

This was really interesting and more complex world-building than most YA I've read - mixing Arthurian legends (which I have never found interesting enough to read much) with Black history and magic and showing (not just saying) “it takes strength to survive and thrive” is a pretty interesting combo. The characters and relationships weren't always heavily developed due to the world-building priority, but that's an understandable choice. There were interesting twists that added a lot, and I enjoyed this enough to go right to the sequel.

Wow! This was so good! Bree is a fantastic protagonist, and the world building is incredible. I'm so excited to read future installments of this series. 

Thank God for that second half! I'm glad I motivated myself to keep reading even though I wanted to give up, otherwise I wouldn't have the fun I had with the second half.

This book is everything that 15 year old me was craving and desired to see in Fantasy. The representation in this book alone is a dream come true for a blerd that was desperate to see and read about more people that looked like me in Fantasy and Sci-Fi books and entertainment.

The cherry on top was that this was so excellently written. The plot was plotting, the world building was immaculate, the magic system superb and the twists were so well thought out and executed.

Queen Deonn gave us everything with this book and she did the damn thing. Cannot wait to read the next installment and continue following Bree's story.

6

Not what I was expecting but so so good. Looking forward to starting the next book.

4.5

I know for sure that grief albeit anything, will never end.

3/5 – I'm going to be the person of unpopular opinion, but this book was just ok to me. I understand it is a cult classic, but I am not sure what was so great about it. I really wanted to DNF, but I pushed through. Here are my issues:

- The book was WAY too long. We did not need that many pages to tell the story.

- I was confused with the language and the telling of the magical system. All the words being used did not make sense to me. I had to locate a wiki fan page on the internet that provided a glossary of the words being used. I shouldn't have to do that for a YA book.

- It was very triggering watching Bree navigate through the loss of her mother only 3 months after her death because she was very unpredictable about what she was doing. Her decisions didn't make sense. These events all seemed to happen within a couple of weeks of school beginning. How is that possible? Did Bree ever go to class or do her work during all of this?

- The diversity was laughable. She was the only black person surrounded by a bunch of white people. There were a few other black/POC characters (Patricia, Mariah, Alice) but they were not in the story as much to make them main characters.

- The slavery trope needs to STOP. This book is supposed to be fantasy, so let's do that! I get slavery is a part of our history and I am fine with that, but let's be creative when it comes to telling black stories.

- The romance was weird and seemed forced. Nothing made me believe that Bree and Nick were attracted to each other.

With all that being said, the book was decent and left on a cliffhanger. I am curious as to what happens in Bloodmarked, so I will be reading the 2nd book. But the book is almost 600 pages!! WHY?? LOL

i did really like this book, it just kind of escaped me in the middle. i went through a long part of time where i couldn't find anything interesting to look forward to until it got closer to the end- which really excited me. honestly i really was hoping that bree and sel would get together - and i unfortunately let that blindside me from the great works of this book. this was an amazing story that i loved, it was just kind of slow for me. but wonderfully written and amazing for being a ya novel. good read :)

this is one of the greatest, if not the greatest urban paranormal fantasy novels i've read in a long time... or maybe ever.

from the well-written characters to the incredibly deep worldbuilding, legendborn is a gem in a world full of booktok fodder. the way this novel intertwines such unique characters, a brilliant multi-faceted magic system, romance, trauma, grief, racism, sexism, stigmas, and arthurian legend in a world so parallel to our own is unfathomable to me. i'm proud to say that this story is set in my southern home state of north carolina and focuses so much of itself upon that fact. it's long for a first in a series, but it's worth it when you realize how much great lore it has to pack in. if you are a fan of urban paranormal fantasy or just great literature, please, please give this a chance. it's basically arthurian shadowhunters.

also i was firmly team bree and nick but y'all... that ending may have turned me into a bree and sel shipper bye

Pre-Reading Updates: i see “unc chapel hill” and i instantly go into fight or flight mode we-

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Anfangs war fand ich das Ende nicht gut bevor ich wusste, dass es noch weiter geht, so macht es das natürlich spannender. Ich fand es ein bisschen weird dass sie auf Sel stand, weil wieso? Ich finde Alices Ende traurig. Allgemein gut geschrieben und gut zu lesen.
Sollte eigentlich für bloodmarked sein

I am so happy I finally read this! I'm not as excited to return to this world in terms of reading the second book just yet but regardless I enjoyed it.

This book pairs juicy YA urban fantasy tropes with a heartbreaking story about grief and perseverance so effortlessly, that I am actually speechless. I need more immediatly!

I tried to read this twice. Both times I had to put it down. The first one at like 5% and the second one at 20. The writing is so juvenile and feels like I’m being handheld. 20% in and I still also have no sense of importance—ie, who should I care about and why?! I have other books on my to read list that won’t feel like such a slog, and this one feels too amateur to bother continuing.

Oh. My. God. What a book. I can't wait to read the sequel. Tracy Deonn beautifully dissects the topics of grief, racism, misogyny and micro-aggressions. Stellar example of Black Excellence.