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A review by blakethebookeater
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
“Death is not a thread. It is the sharp cut that severs us. Death separates us from one another, and yet it holds us close. As deeply as we hate it, it loves us more.”
Legendborn is a revelation of a novel. I’ve just been coming back to reading YA and this is the kind of story I want to read more of in YA.
Bree Matthews is a 16 year old black girl who is attending the Early College program at UNC Chapel Hill after her mother dies in a car accident. During her first night, she witnesses something magical and slightly terrifying...and come to realize there may be more to her mother’s death then she thought. Her only way forward? Infiltrating a secret organization with ties to the legend of King Arthur in order to find out the truth about et mother and who she really is.
While this journey includes magic and monsters, this is a book deeply about grief. This is not a typical YA novel where the main character has offscreen dead parents and they’re barely affected. Everything Bree does is colored by her loss. We feel the immense love she had for her mother and how much it hurts that she’s no longer in her life. While reading this novel, I lost my dog (the first real loss in my life) and while also throwing me into a hell of a reading slump, it also made me deeply connect to Bree and those emotions of wanting everything to be different.
Moving to college (even though it’s not *technically* college) also puts a strain on her longtime friendship with her bestie Alice. And much like their strained relationship, I had a similar experience when I moved to college. Tracy Deonn I think has perfectly captured some of the feelings and emotion that goes with these big life changes and distilled it in a way that young reader will really be able to connect to them. This series will be important a lot of readers in a huge way, I believe.
All of the intrigue about the Order was just awesome and I LOVED that the protagonist in a YA novel was skeptical of the magical society instead of just automatically over the moon. And that I think is intrinsically tied to Bree’s identity as a black girl on a mostly white campus. The entire Order is white (or white passing) and it places her as even more of an outsider as she tries to infiltrate the organization to discover the truth. Bree was such a brave (and vulnerable) lead and it was so empowering to see her push through every single obstacle thrown at her in order to pursue her goal.
There is SO much more I could get into, but then this would turn into an essay, but I’ll say this. Legendborn by Tracy Deonn is a MUST read and I can easily see this becoming The Next Big Thing™️ because it truly truly deserves it!
Legendborn is a revelation of a novel. I’ve just been coming back to reading YA and this is the kind of story I want to read more of in YA.
Bree Matthews is a 16 year old black girl who is attending the Early College program at UNC Chapel Hill after her mother dies in a car accident. During her first night, she witnesses something magical and slightly terrifying...and come to realize there may be more to her mother’s death then she thought. Her only way forward? Infiltrating a secret organization with ties to the legend of King Arthur in order to find out the truth about et mother and who she really is.
While this journey includes magic and monsters, this is a book deeply about grief. This is not a typical YA novel where the main character has offscreen dead parents and they’re barely affected. Everything Bree does is colored by her loss. We feel the immense love she had for her mother and how much it hurts that she’s no longer in her life. While reading this novel, I lost my dog (the first real loss in my life) and while also throwing me into a hell of a reading slump, it also made me deeply connect to Bree and those emotions of wanting everything to be different.
Moving to college (even though it’s not *technically* college) also puts a strain on her longtime friendship with her bestie Alice. And much like their strained relationship, I had a similar experience when I moved to college. Tracy Deonn I think has perfectly captured some of the feelings and emotion that goes with these big life changes and distilled it in a way that young reader will really be able to connect to them. This series will be important a lot of readers in a huge way, I believe.
All of the intrigue about the Order was just awesome and I LOVED that the protagonist in a YA novel was skeptical of the magical society instead of just automatically over the moon. And that I think is intrinsically tied to Bree’s identity as a black girl on a mostly white campus. The entire Order is white (or white passing) and it places her as even more of an outsider as she tries to infiltrate the organization to discover the truth. Bree was such a brave (and vulnerable) lead and it was so empowering to see her push through every single obstacle thrown at her in order to pursue her goal.
There is SO much more I could get into, but then this would turn into an essay, but I’ll say this. Legendborn by Tracy Deonn is a MUST read and I can easily see this becoming The Next Big Thing™️ because it truly truly deserves it!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Violence, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Cursing, Slavery, Blood, Misogyny, and Car accident