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thebibutterfly's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
One of the best urban fantasy stories I’ve ever read! Cannot wait to read the next one in this series.
I have a feeling that Nick isn’t going to win in this love triangle. I’ve never wished for a throuple more.
anshar's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
yasminajilani's review against another edition
4.0
4.5 stars, it was soooooo slow to get into, like the first 200 pages I had to force myself to keep reading with the promise that'd get better in the second half of the book. And Lord, y'all were right, the second half took me off guard so many times, all of those plot-twists! And that ending, Jesus! At this point I don't even know if I want my girl Bree to end up with Daddy Sel or Simp Nick, I love both of them soooo much please. I pre-ordered Bloodmarked and I'm so excited for November!!
knkayaktel's review against another edition
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The first 60% was okay, but I really got hooked in the last 40%. Bree really annoyed me at the beginning, because she would act without thinking and getting information (which is very unlike me, which is why it drives me nuts), but there was a lot of growth later on.
terriarnold's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
fishy27's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
I put off reading Legendborn for quite a while because I never ONCE heard a single negative review of this book, no critiques, nothing, and that love made me nervous to read it. I didn’t want to dislike it, and it’s difficult to level-set expectations when no one will check you on it. Ultimately, I wasn’t disappointed.
Tracy Deonn does an excellent job in this Arthurian retelling through the lens of a Black main character. Bree is so well written: she handles the ugly parts of grief, suffers overt & systemic racism and misogyny, and despite that, she exhibits strength in a very realistic way. I really liked that Deonn didn’t fall prey to a persistent issue among authors in the fantasy space with making their FMCs unrealistically strong to a point where it’s inhuman. Bree was well-rounded, smart, and such a great main character to follow.
In that vein, I must praise Deonn for how she addresses and explores such heavy themes in a YA fantasy novel. Bree is forced to be extremely aware of her gender & race, and she's consistently been put in positions where she has to defend herself. Deonn has /made it about race/ without writing a story that's just another "look everyone. racism is bad and colonization is dirty." Fantasy has a lot of those, and while those are valuable for the genre and literature as a whole, it's just a little tired when you keep reading the same themes over and over again. I’m not a huge urban fiction/fantasy reader, and I think that not being transported to another world makes it easier for Deonn to impress that these problems are not abstract, not far away issues. She forces you to look them directly in the face and acknowledge that racism is not part of the fantastic.
Back to the story itself: this is not a good book to listen to exclusively on audiobook. I don’t hold that against the book or author at all, but I certainly think I made a mistake by listening to the first part of this book without a physical copy to tandem read. The book can be rather info-dumpy sometimes, and I found it difficult to keep track of all the new words and world building without having the words in front of me. The narrator does a fantastic job, but unfortunately, the text itself doesn’t lend itself well for people who are a bit more visual.
On the romance front: I don’t like either of the men in this love triangle, and I’m a little confused about why Bree falls for Nick as quickly as she does in the first place.
I think her attraction to Nick can be explained by way of grief and trauma responses, but it also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense with Bree’s character. I was confused when she started to fall for this random white boy at school, especially with the layers of power imbalance.
Sel is just an asshole. I did have a hard time hating him from the point of learning that he had to pledge an oath when he was a child, before he could even understand what all that entailed. He has a tragic backstory, and I sympathize with him as a person, but he said it himself: no one needs as much therapy as him. I didn’t like how he treated Bree (and, really, everybody else), and I was a bit disappointed to see her overlook his treatment so easily.
For a story with such a rich exploration of race with an FMC who knows her worth, it was difficult to accept that she was willing to tolerate shitty treatment from both of these men.
The magic system in this book is amazing. Ancestral magic is such a well-established trope in fantasy, and it was very refreshing to see it spun with a Black FMC WITHOUT the “magic black woman” vibes. Deonn wraps nuanced and intricate commentaries on colonialism and racism into this magic system, and I think she really did an exemplary job of it.
Tracy Deonn does an excellent job in this Arthurian retelling through the lens of a Black main character. Bree is so well written: she handles the ugly parts of grief, suffers overt & systemic racism and misogyny, and despite that, she exhibits strength in a very realistic way. I really liked that Deonn didn’t fall prey to a persistent issue among authors in the fantasy space with making their FMCs unrealistically strong to a point where it’s inhuman. Bree was well-rounded, smart, and such a great main character to follow.
In that vein, I must praise Deonn for how she addresses and explores such heavy themes in a YA fantasy novel. Bree is forced to be extremely aware of her gender & race, and she's consistently been put in positions where she has to defend herself. Deonn has /made it about race/ without writing a story that's just another "look everyone. racism is bad and colonization is dirty." Fantasy has a lot of those, and while those are valuable for the genre and literature as a whole, it's just a little tired when you keep reading the same themes over and over again. I’m not a huge urban fiction/fantasy reader, and I think that not being transported to another world makes it easier for Deonn to impress that these problems are not abstract, not far away issues. She forces you to look them directly in the face and acknowledge that racism is not part of the fantastic.
Back to the story itself: this is not a good book to listen to exclusively on audiobook. I don’t hold that against the book or author at all, but I certainly think I made a mistake by listening to the first part of this book without a physical copy to tandem read. The book can be rather info-dumpy sometimes, and I found it difficult to keep track of all the new words and world building without having the words in front of me. The narrator does a fantastic job, but unfortunately, the text itself doesn’t lend itself well for people who are a bit more visual.
On the romance front: I don’t like either of the men in this love triangle, and I’m a little confused about why Bree falls for Nick as quickly as she does in the first place.
I think her attraction to Nick can be explained by way of grief and trauma responses, but it also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense with Bree’s character. I was confused when she started to fall for this random white boy at school, especially with the layers of power imbalance.
Sel is just an asshole. I did have a hard time hating him from the point of learning that he had to pledge an oath when he was a child, before he could even understand what all that entailed. He has a tragic backstory, and I sympathize with him as a person, but he said it himself: no one needs as much therapy as him. I didn’t like how he treated Bree (and, really, everybody else), and I was a bit disappointed to see her overlook his treatment so easily.
For a story with such a rich exploration of race with an FMC who knows her worth, it was difficult to accept that she was willing to tolerate shitty treatment from both of these men.
The magic system in this book is amazing. Ancestral magic is such a well-established trope in fantasy, and it was very refreshing to see it spun with a Black FMC WITHOUT the “magic black woman” vibes. Deonn wraps nuanced and intricate commentaries on colonialism and racism into this magic system, and I think she really did an exemplary job of it.
chastiny's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
As a fellow black girl from North Carolina, all I have to say is It was a great read!! I have always been a fan of the show Merlin in the story of King Arthur. This book is nothing like that but it’s better. I thoroughly wish I had read this book sooner. Also great twist! I’m normally good at picking up on a twist, but that one caught me. I listen to it at work and I just had to stop and look around to see if anyone else was believing this was happening lol Reading book 2!
sheisinquisitive's review against another edition
3.0
Alright, so I didn't love it. I can understand why many do, and it's cool. It just wasn't for me, but I did like it enough to finish it (although I read it with a friend of mine, and she was really into it, so I kept going for her... plus I had to know what the hell was happening... even if I felt like the big reveal was kind of predictable).
The book approached many themes with maturity and delicacy. Conversations about grief felt therapeutic. Experiences of racism and discrimination felt real. The desire to understand one's ancestry and to stay connected to one's roots is one I am too familiar with, and those moments kept me going. I would've preferred a deep dive into those elements of the story more so than the Arthurian legend (a myth I found enchanting once, but I'd rather just watch "Merlin" again).
I really loved some of the POC characters (I can't remember their names, but the people who helped Bree process her emotions and explore her ancestry). I saw a little bit of myself in them. How they spoke, what they valued, and even how they saw themselves among the white population in the text. I can tell Deonn relied on her life experiences to make those moments sentimental and relatable for her readers.
That being said, it's been a while since I read a book of this genre. It carried the same energy as the "Divergent" series with teenagers fighting for a place, for belonging, just in the genre of urban fantasy. Unfortunately, I found the tasks or stages, whatever they were to be... boring? I could imagine them, but not really. Often, too much was happening in different parts of the college or school they were at, and there were one too many relationships to keep track of that I almost forgot about this competition thing altogether. It was a lengthy read and I'm sure that played a part in how long it took me to read this and how many times I lost track of something.
There was too much info-dumping. I felt that Deonn had this expectation that readers would be entering the world of Legendborns with crystal-clear knowledge of the Arthurian legends. I haven't read anything with King Arthur in it since elementary, so... There were too many names to keep track of, too many relationships and bloodlines to unravel, and too many (God, too many) relationships (familial, platonic, romantic) that made everything too convoluted, too difficult to decipher. And don't get me started on all the new terminology I was expected to follow. I'm not even sure how Bree easily fell into this world and accepted it. She didn't seem shocked at all after the first magical attack. You'd think she'd be a bit more hesitant, a bit more troubled by this new reality.
I didn't mind the main cast. I thought Nicholas and Selwyn (what kind of name is Selwyn?) were interesting and their relationships with Bree were distinguishable and intriguing. I have to be honest, the romance was alright, but I also could've lived without it. There was just too much happening for me to really care about it. I was too focused on recalling what happened in the previous chapters and if they made sense with what was happening. Oh, and those supporting characters? Why were they all the same person... just different fonts? And those names? What were those names? I can't tell you the name of any supporting character besides William (and that's because I liked his character).
Anyways, I know I pointed out a lot more flaws, but I believe Deonn's writing skills brought it up to three stars. We love reading well-written books with evident research skills and a vocabulary with range. Too bad it was just... too much, I guess.
The book approached many themes with maturity and delicacy. Conversations about grief felt therapeutic. Experiences of racism and discrimination felt real. The desire to understand one's ancestry and to stay connected to one's roots is one I am too familiar with, and those moments kept me going. I would've preferred a deep dive into those elements of the story more so than the Arthurian legend (a myth I found enchanting once, but I'd rather just watch "Merlin" again).
I really loved some of the POC characters (I can't remember their names, but the people who helped Bree process her emotions and explore her ancestry). I saw a little bit of myself in them. How they spoke, what they valued, and even how they saw themselves among the white population in the text. I can tell Deonn relied on her life experiences to make those moments sentimental and relatable for her readers.
That being said, it's been a while since I read a book of this genre. It carried the same energy as the "Divergent" series with teenagers fighting for a place, for belonging, just in the genre of urban fantasy. Unfortunately, I found the tasks or stages, whatever they were to be... boring? I could imagine them, but not really. Often, too much was happening in different parts of the college or school they were at, and there were one too many relationships to keep track of that I almost forgot about this competition thing altogether. It was a lengthy read and I'm sure that played a part in how long it took me to read this and how many times I lost track of something.
There was too much info-dumping. I felt that Deonn had this expectation that readers would be entering the world of Legendborns with crystal-clear knowledge of the Arthurian legends. I haven't read anything with King Arthur in it since elementary, so... There were too many names to keep track of, too many relationships and bloodlines to unravel, and too many (God, too many) relationships (familial, platonic, romantic) that made everything too convoluted, too difficult to decipher. And don't get me started on all the new terminology I was expected to follow. I'm not even sure how Bree easily fell into this world and accepted it. She didn't seem shocked at all after the first magical attack. You'd think she'd be a bit more hesitant, a bit more troubled by this new reality.
I didn't mind the main cast. I thought Nicholas and Selwyn (what kind of name is Selwyn?) were interesting and their relationships with Bree were distinguishable and intriguing. I have to be honest, the romance was alright, but I also could've lived without it. There was just too much happening for me to really care about it. I was too focused on recalling what happened in the previous chapters and if they made sense with what was happening. Oh, and those supporting characters? Why were they all the same person... just different fonts? And those names? What were those names? I can't tell you the name of any supporting character besides William (and that's because I liked his character).
Anyways, I know I pointed out a lot more flaws, but I believe Deonn's writing skills brought it up to three stars. We love reading well-written books with evident research skills and a vocabulary with range. Too bad it was just... too much, I guess.