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Legendborn (1) (The Legendborn Cycle)
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 Deonnās 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 UNCāChapel Hill seems like the perfect escapeāuntil Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.
A flying demon feeding on human energies.
A secret society of so called āLegendbornā students that hunt the creatures down.
And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a āMerlinā and who attemptsāand failsāto wipe Breeās memory of everything she saw.
The mageās failure unlocks Breeās 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 thereās more to her motherās death than whatās on the police report, sheāll 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 societyās secretsāand closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthurās knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far sheāll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society downāor join the fight.
Winner of the Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe for New Talent Author Award
Filled with mystery and an intriguingly rich magic system, Tracy Deonnās 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 UNCāChapel Hill seems like the perfect escapeāuntil Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.
A flying demon feeding on human energies.
A secret society of so called āLegendbornā students that hunt the creatures down.
And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a āMerlinā and who attemptsāand failsāto wipe Breeās memory of everything she saw.
The mageās failure unlocks Breeās 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 thereās more to her motherās death than whatās on the police report, sheāll 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 societyās secretsāand closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthurās knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far sheāll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society downāor join the fight.
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Community Reviews
OMG!! Why did I allow this to sit on my TBR for so long??!?! An amazing mix of fantasy with the lore of King Arthur, this book was twist after unpredictable twist! I have a few suspicions going into the next book, which I need to start immediately!
Wow. Just wow. This will live in my head for a while, that was such a crazy ending.
What Tracy Deonn has attempted here is highly commendable. She deftly handles the major themes of family relations, grief and the traumatic legacy of racism. As a first novel I feel it would have benefitted from more editing, especially in terms of length. Despite this, I highly recommend for young adults.
There were many commendable aspects to this book, but overall, I think it needed a very good edit. The way Deonn weaves in contemporary racism, the macro and micro aggressions toward people of color, was excellent. But her approach to her complex fantasy world was too heavy-handed. Especially in the first half of the book. Many conversations were used to info-dump the rules of the magic she created. It dragged the book down, made it hard to like the characters, and became boring. However, as another reviewer noted, the second half of the book, with its connection to ancestors and "rootcraft," was lovely and left the reader feeling more satisfied.
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.
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