Rated 4/5
Bree Matthews is a sixteen-year-old girl who has recently lost her mother to an accident. Now with a huge feeling of grief and the reminders of her mother from their hometown, Bree decides to flee to escape it all. Escaping to a residential program at UNC-Chapel Hill, Bree finds this to be a great distraction. But while staying there, she encounters a flying demon at night and a teenage boy who attempts to wipe her memory with magic right after. But the memory wipe fails, and Bree remembers everything she saw the night before. Remembering the past events, a new memory unlocks, and she finds that her mother’s death may be connected to this world of magic and demons. She later finds a boy named Nick Davis who has experience with this newfound world and works together with him to dig deeper into her mother’s death. But during her journey with this new society, she finds that a war is about to come and is stuck between leaving and helping while also finding secrets about the society and more information than she could imagine about herself and her history.
“Legendborn” by Tracy Deonn is a unique fantasy book that associates Arthurian lore while speaking about modern and past racial problems against black people and introduces diversity in LGBTQ+ characters. Out of all the books I’ve read, I felt that this novel is something I’ve never read before because the plot is extremely unique since it connects King Arthur and his knights to the story. The racial problems spoken about were integrated amazingly with the magic aspect of it and were important as it told many personal experiences that others have faced before. I loved the romance involved but I usually don’t like love triangles. What I mainly didn’t like so much was how long it took me to get into the book. The first few chapters of fantasy are always filled with information explaining how things work but it took me about 150-200 pages to get into it. Even after I finished “Legendborn”, I still am a little confused. But overall, this novel was fantastic, and I enjoyed the unique storyline and the diversity included. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read fantasy, young adult fiction, and romance.