I’m going to preface this review by stating that I don’t think Legendborn was a bad read and I do understand why it’s quite popular; however, a combination of things contributed to me feeling a little shorted by what this book could have been.
In Legendborn, Bree attends an early college program hoping to escape her feelings of loss at home after her mother’s death. Her first night on campus, she witnesses something she shouldn’t and is thrown headfirst into a campus organization straight out of Arthurian legend. She soon learns the organization may have had a hand in her mother’s death and infiltrates the group, hoping to find out what really happened. As she’s initiated, a mystical war is brewing in which she’ll have to pick a side – will she fight for the Legendborn or take them down to discover the truth?
Firstly, I love all the inclusion! Here we have a wonderfully fantastical storyline led by a black female protagonist who is joined by LGBTQ+ characters. Tracy Deonn didn’t gloss over black history and I truly appreciated the way she put us in Bree’s head as she encountered racially charged situations. Though we’ve seen other black protagonists, I have yet to read one that even comes close to touching on how this affects their day-to-day life. I would love to see this become more of a trend in literature; it can be uncomfortable, but it also helps us grow, particularly readers like me who haven’t experienced those situations first-hand. As for the LGBTQ+ characters, they had important relationships with Bree and were central to the story, so we saw they quite a bit, but nothing felt forced. They were real people who weren’t solely included for the sake of having a token LGBTQ+ character. Their genders and sexualities are part of the character development, but they aren’t questioned or explained in full, they just exist as they are which was really beautiful to see.
Speaking of character development, the characters central to the story were well-fleshed out. It was easy to understand their motivations and personalities and I loved seeing all their backstories unfold. Development is good; it’s just unfortunate they were all a bit annoying. I think the only people I didn’t find annoying were Greer and William. Bree was immature, which I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt on seeing as she’s only 16, but she felt like a strange mixture of adult sexuality but childlike immaturity. Alice was selfish and, despite her intelligence, it took her ages to realize it’s ok for people to change but she still seemed to only be ok with it if they changed to suit her expectations. Sel was the stereotypical moody, bad boy with the complicated familial history. And Nick, oh Nick, willing to completely alter his life after knowing Bree for all of an hour, always having to be the knight when I would have loved to see her save herself. Greer on the other hand was mature, had a sense of humor, was honest about their situation and experiences while finding ways to combat prejudice against them.
I think a strong portion of my disappointment with Legendborn was all the hype surrounding it online. It’s very highly rated on GoodReads and I couldn’t go a day without seeing multiple posts raving about it on bookstagram. I don’t know that it’s one I would have normally gravitated towards if it weren’t for all the hype, but at no point did I feel like it lived up to it. The action sequences were solid, but they were split by long, drawn out sections of info dumping.
I love Arthurian lore, so seeing a retelling led by a BIPOC protagonist was so exciting! I’m hoping some of the hiccups were solely because Legendborn was a debut novel and will be sorted out in future books in the series because I think this storyline has amazing potential!
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