Legendborn

TikTok made me buy it!

By: Tracy Deonn

Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt

Length: 18 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Filled with mystery and Southern Black Girl Magic, Tracy Deonn’s New York Times bestselling Legendborn offers the dark allure of City of Bones with a modern-day twist on a classic legend. This is an explosive fantasy debut that's perfect for fans of Cassandra Clare, Leigh Bardugo, Sarah J. Maas and Cinderella is Dead!

Some legacies are meant to be broken.

After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants to escape. A residential programme for bright high-schoolers seems like the perfect opportunity – until she witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus....

A flying demon feeding on human energies.

A secret society of so-called 'Legendborn' that hunt the creatures down.

A mysterious 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 about her mother. Now Bree will do whatever it takes to discover the truth, even infiltrate the Legendborn. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and foretell a magical war, Bree must decide how far she’ll go for the truth. Should she use her magic to take the society down – or join the fight?

Winner of the Coretta Scott King – John Steptoe for New Talent Author Award.

©2020 Tracy Deonn (P)2020 Simon & Schuster, INC.

Excellent. Must read.

I don’t often review. Overall, an excellent listen. Highly recommended.

The writing and story is excellent. The main character is instantly relatable and you root for her from the get go. The author has a turn of phrase that is impactful (it is a study in great writing) and kept me gripped in the first quarter of the book, then the plot kicks up a gear and keeps you gripped the rest of the way. I was gripped from start to finish and finished it almost in one go.

The book deals with race issues (it’s not the main thing) that ordinarily I would not be interested in, but does so without being heavy-handed or preachy, which won me over.

I don’t know why audible recommends so many bad books to me. This is a hidden gem that I discovered from a booktuber, Merphy Napier. (Check out the international Audible reviews as well.) After all the boring PC crap Audible recommends, you would think this brilliant book from a black author would be a no-brainer.

The book is based on Arthurian legends — this might have put me off. Don’t let that put you off either.

The only drawback is some narration issues. The narrator is overall a good match for the main character’s voice, though her voicing of white characters was spellbreaking for me. I was looking for the distinctive southern gentleman cadence, but didn’t get it. But in no way should this deter you from what is overall a great listen.

Buffy &Vampires meets Twilight

Gripping story with realistic female leads. Its an action packed book, but just as interesting is how the main characters; healing process from grief and navigating starting uni.

Unpopular opinion

So this story definitely has so much potential, but firstly the narration... the main character’s voice was great, but the story stated that most of the other characters weren’t her ethnicity yet the narrator made them all sound similar to the main characters accent so didn’t match up with the storyline. Secondly I felt like the main character was whining and not a strong character so inherently I already disliked her personality... I stuck with the story to see if there would be an improvement and there was but not by much aside from the physical powers the personality didn’t develop much. This was recommended to me and I liked the main character being African American but I felt the story kept digressing to her race constantly and I feel some of that was great but too much just distracted from the story I wanted a supernatural story with a kick ass main female protagonist which is t really what I got. Maybe the harsh review is partly because I felt the story just didn’t live up to the hype. I would definitely try future books by this author and narrator just that this one didn’t do it for me.

Amazing narration and captivating story

Joniece Abbott-Pratt brings an already beautiful story to life. Her style brings depth to each character.

Modern, magical twist on a generations old story!

TW: racism, sexism, rape, child abuse, slavery. This incredible debut left me speechless and has now taken a spot in my top 3 favourite fantasy books/series. It's based on the story of King Arthur but Tracy Deonn puts a mind blowing modern, magical twist on the generations old story while intertwining a diverse character line up as well as making it historically and racially educational. Bree Matthews is a 16 year old black girl in Carolina who tragically lost her mother in a car accident and as she battles with her grief she convinces her Dad to let her leave for a residential programme at the University of North Carolina. However on their first night they witness something that unlocks a repressed memory in Bree's mind of the night her mother died which leads her on a quest to discover the truth about what really happened. I could rave about this book ALL day but it's so hard not to give spoilers! I genuinely loved every second and every character, it's such a page turner, it's filled with twists and turns and it has such an amazing ending that will lead on to the future book(s). My favourite part is definitely the incredible representation! Out of the main characters, Bree gives us Black own voices rep, Sel gives us bisexual bad boy rep and Alice gives us Taiwanese-American lesbian rep. And within the side characters there is even more LGBTQ+ rep as well as a non-binary character who uses they/them pronouns. Also, race, both now and historically, is discussed educationally as well as emotionally due to the own voice perspective and it is so powerful, especially the topic of slavery. It is all just written so perfectly. Overall (and without running out of word space), I think everyone should read this book. Honestly just go buy it. You won't regret it 🙈 P.S. Read the author notes!

Read this if you love fantasy

Amazing - the new and improved throne of glass and shadowhunters!!!!!! Read this it is fantastic

Great!

This book is exciting from start to finish.
The main character has incredible depth to her.
It does cover a lot about loss, after the characters mother passes away she is dealing with a lot of grief. Just a little warning for anyone that might find this difficult for their own reasons.

I really enjoyed this book, give it a try!

Not terrible but not great either.

Decent plot idea and story.
However it was relatively predictable, repetitive and the narrators voice sounded whiney when she was emphasising danger/ distress.

Great find!

I never expected the storyline to go where it did, can't wait for the next!

Classic story retold in the USA

Classic story retold in the USA

I really like the idea of this story, it has an interesting take on the concept of King Arthur, Colonialism, and threads in all of the USA’s history, (at present 246 years).

But I found it really hard to get into, if nothing else because it’s just soo anxious, at times I had to take a break and do other things.

Besides that the only real complaint I have with this story is that the pronunciation of every Welsh word was like nails on the chalk board to me, it really brought me out of the story with a bump.

wow

I’m not one to write reviews usually, but wow this book was incredible. The world and characters the author created are so rich. I especially want to highlight the narrator’s performance, which I can’t praise enough! Highly recommend :)

Brilliant!

Brest book I’ve listened to! Couldn’t stop listening to it so I definitely recommend to buy!

Breath of fresh air in YA fantasy

Highly recommend to everyone who is tired by the repetitiveness of the YA fantasy! Legendborn will not disappoint you!

Good story but the narration could be better

I think the story was OK, a bit predictable but I don’t really have an issue with that. I think most of my frustration came from the narration of the story. I found that there were times when the narrator would completely change the tone of her voice without reason which caught me off guard several times. I would understand if the change was due to a character or emotion but sometimes it was just randomly done.