Review by lmayfieldx - Legendborn

A review by lmayfieldx
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

“𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞, 𝐬𝐨 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭. 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝, 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥. 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠’𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞, 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫’𝐬 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭, 𝐛𝐲 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐨𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐰”

⭐️: 3

🌶️: 1

tw: mention of parent passing, violence, death, medical content, gore, racism, bigotry

♦️ first person

♦️ chosen one

♦️ king arthur retelling

♦️ magic

♦️ insta love

♦️ love triangle

♦️ ancestral pain

♦️ past trauma

♦️ poc rep

♦️ lgbtqia+ rep

bree is struggling with the loss of her mom. they argued about the school she got accepted into right before her death…the school that bree is starting soon

during bree’s first night on campus, she witnesses a magical fight. a merlin attempts to wipe her memory, but she remembers everything. this leads her to remember the same thing occurring at the hospital the night that her mom died

bree befriends nick, a legendborn that has refused to be in the order. she tells him of her troubles and recruits him to help her find out what really happened to her mom

—

i reeeeally wanted to enjoy this one. but i found myself struggling through this one & even contemplated dnfing, but decided to push through, because it really had potential

i was fairly confused throughout a good portion of the book. i even tried slowing down the audiobook (i usually listen at 2.0+ speed lol) and rewinding several times, but still found myself confused. i thought maybe it was just bc i was listening to the audiobook, but other reviews that i read after finishing also expressed that a lot of other readers were confused too. this was incredibly frustrating, bc how can you really enjoy a book if you’re confused about the stuff happening the majority of the time??

there is a lot of info dumping. sometimes the majority of the chapter would just be explaining the different magical beings or sources of magic - which, yes we need to know all of this information, but it could’ve been incorporated throughout the book better. also, bree seemed to know all of the magic but simultaneously not fully know what was going on. as the reader it was difficult, because we weren’t learning along with bree, since she “knew” these things already

—

😁 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐬 😁

~ reflection upon big, real life issues - this is so important & was done so well throughout the book!

~ the way that bree carried herself when dealing with closed minded individuals

~ the magic system, especially the rootcraft & it’s connection to african culture

~ scenes with other rootcrafters - this honestly played a huge role in redemption for the book for me. these scenes were the most interesting to me & the ones i enjoyed most

~~~~

😬 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐬 😬

~ as i mentioned, there was a lot of info dumping throughout the book - it made parts of the book overwhelming & led to a lot of confusion, honestly

~ no real connection to either mmc - i wasn’t rooting for nick or selwyn. sure, nick was kind and went along with bree’s plan & selwyn did change his demeanor some throughout the book, but i didn’t really care who bree was gonna have/pursue feelings for 😅

~ there were a lot of side characters that we didn’t learn much about & weren’t super important to the story, to the point that it was too many to keep up with

—

i may have let the hype from others influence my preconceived ideas about this book or this book may just not be for me. i’m undecided at this time whether i’ll continue the series or not. i hope that other readers enjoy this book!

Content Warnings

A review by lmayfieldx Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

A review by lmayfieldx
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn