Legendborn
Books | Young Adult Fiction / Fantasy / Contemporary
4.5
(19.2K)
Tracy Deonn
An Instant New York Times Bestseller! Winner of the Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe for New Talent Author Award Filled with mystery and an intriguingly rich magic system, Tracy Deonn’s YA contemporary fantasy Legendborn offers the dark allure of City of Bones with a modern-day twist on a classic legend and a lot of Southern Black Girl Magic.After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus. A flying demon feeding on human energies. A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down. And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw. The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates. She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.
Fantasy
Romance
Magic
Urban Fantasy
Mental Health
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More Details:
Author
Tracy Deonn
Pages
512
Publisher
Simon and Schuster
Published Date
2020-09-15
ISBN
1534441603 9781534441606
Community ReviewsSee all
"Wow. Tracy Deonn achieved so much in one book that it's hard to put into words. She not only pulled from her own experiences of grief of losing her mother but also that of multigenerational pain, loss, and suffering of marginalized black people in the South. Although only a small glimpse, I'm sure, of what she's felt in her life, it spoke volumes to hear the internal dialogue of the MC as she deals with racism and hate. And through all this, she also manages to weave a fantastical romance, magic, and lecacy with the background of King Arthur and the knights of the roundtable. True craftsmanship. I just ordered the next two books because I can't wait to read more."
"Just an awesome fantasy novel that touches on a lot of important issues as well!"
J K
Jonathan Kent
"I want to start by saying that it took me an embarrassingly long time to finish this book for it to be a YA. It is broken up into four parts as you follow Bree through her journey of grief and love. I found a lot of myself and my mother in Bree and her mother’s stories. It’s not just a science fiction, it’s also a coming of age novel. I liked the final half of the book a lot more than the first half. I will def be reading the sequel I hope the news of it becoming a series is true. "
"I’ve heard so many people reviewing this book so I was a bit skeptical to be honest! This book does tackle a lot of major issues like grief, racism, slavery, classism but it also focuses on a lot of good attributes. It is set at UNC Chapel Hill but since it did involve a secret society, I think the book did a good job at setting the scene. The class system that is made up in the book is sometimes hard to follow trying to remember everyones jobs and connections but because the main character is coming in clueless, it makes it a learning experience for everyone. All of the characters are believable as students/ teenagers. Although most of them are trained as knights, they still are going through college and have a lot going on outside of their secret society.
I really enjoyed this book! It pulled in generational trauma as well as ancestors. And it was interesting to see how they tied the ancestors to the magic. This is the definition of Black Girl Magic! The storyline wasn’t too far fetched, I really enjoyed Bree learning her heritage and growing into the person she became by the end. It does incorporate history, King Arthur, slavery, and even the truth of attending a predominately white institution and the bigotry that still exists.
This book kept me interested, kept me reading, and made me want to fly through to the end. The magic system, the Arthurian system, the demons, the characters, everything made this book into something worth reading. "
"The main character is as prickly as a porcupine. She has extremely good reason to be, but it is hard to get past the spines, and her self righteous anger at the world makes her quite self-centered and blind to anyone elses' wounds. She is also willfully blind to the damage she causes with her dangerous subterfuge.
If you are able to get past the prickliness though, there is a really sound plot and incredible world building underneath it all. There is also significant character growth - it just literally takes three quarters of the book to actually occur. If you hang in there it is well worth it, I promise - just be warned there is a lot of anger and teenage resentment to wade through before there's any sort of forward motion."
"Good book with great characters and story building, but I do feel like some parts of it were rushed. The beginning especially. I find that in most modern books the beginning is rushed to get into plot and I do feel like this is one of them. If you are looking for a well-thought out fantasy book with strong characters, I would read this one. "
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