Reviews

Legendborn - Der geheime Bund by Tracy Deonn

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adventurous emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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2.0

This book has a very solid foundation. Well crafted plot construction, at least somewhat unique characters and, while at times somewhat slow, a very well managed pacing.

But despite being far beyond average in its writing quality there is nothing behind it all.
The entire story is hollow. It's hackneyed and corny clichées all the way down in a very pretty package.
It's YA, so it's no surprise that a lot of this book comes across as shallow to me.

Somewhat of a pet-peeve I want to mention is the whole speel about revenge not bringing back your loved ones. It is true that the drive for revenge can easily become an unhealthy obsession but I can say from experience that many people can only start to process their grief after the person responsible has been brought to justice. Many people are stuck in this never-ending quest for justice because they need closure to even begin to get past their loss. It's a good example of the kind of pseudo-wisdom the book is packed full of.

The only aspect that actually had the potential to convey some actual wisdom was the whole racism thing with a black protagonist. But instead of a nuanced and complex take on the issue, the execution is just one-dimensional and lazy. It reads more like BLM propaganda with a good portion of destructive cancel culture on top.
It promotes everything from willful destruction of monuments to the concept of blood-debt in a form one usually only finds in the mafia. It's disturbing really. And I am not even disputing that racism in general, as well as racism against black people in America in particular, are very real problems. But counter-bigotry is not the solution. It only inflames the conflict to the point where a reasonable debate becomes impossible. I can see how a young person could develop a world-view as this MC does in regards to discrimination against her. It's very believable. But in all other aspects, the cast acts exemplary in all things or at least demonstrates how not to do a thing by immediately having the consequences rain down on them as a harsh lesson in typical YA fashion. Maybe I am doing the series a huge injustice here and all this prejudice and bigotry will be addressed in a more nuanced fashion later on but at no point was there any indication for this. It very much feels like the author believes she is fighting the righteous fight against white oppression.

I want to emphasize here that I tried to keep my judgment of other aspects of the book independent from my problem with the whole racism part. It only is a small part of this 500-page book after all.

I can see how young readers with little reading experience might get a lot more enjoyment out of this than I did.