Legendborn by Tracy Deonn Book Review

Rating: 1 out of 5 bastards [Sighs] here we go again (Content warning in summary for talks of parental death) Summary Legendborn is a 2020 novel by Tracy Deonn. It follows a 16-year-old named Bree whose mom dies in the prologue of the book. She goes to some sort of early college program at the University of North Carolina and there she discovers that what she previously thought was her mom’s death by car accident may be a nefarious part of mystical secret magic society. She also gets into a pseudo love triangle with two white dudes. Hm. Review Whew this book. I don't know if saying it sucked is doing it justice. This book is just so poorly written. The dialogue is stilted and doesn't flow naturally at all. Check below. “It’s college,” Charlotte says with a shrug. “Smart but a bad influence describes like half the student body.” “Hey babe,” Charlotte purrs, and greets him with a giggling kiss. “This is my boyfriend, y’all. Evan Cooper.” And that's basically the whole book. Roll credits. This book is just one big ball of bad dialogue and exposition, DEAR GOD THE EXPOSITIIIIIIIOON. Characters literally just sound like they're reciting the plot of the book from a Wikipedia summary, as they speak to one another. The white boy character who mentors her literally spent as much as 3 to 4 pages at a time, almost uninterruptedly just dropping plot to Bree. The magic system makes absolutely no sense. You just get thrown into this supposedly Arthurian- based magic system. But nothing is really that Arthurian except the word Merlin getting thrown around every page. And the main love interest boy, Nick, appears to be a descendant of King Arthur. You’re dropped into pages worth of exposition but even with all the explaining the damn system still NEVER MAKES ANY SENSE. After about 300 pages, the words aether, vassals, pages, merlin, legendborn, kingsmage, lord, and demon just started to blend together on the page, right before my very eyes. All that exposition and I came out of this book so much more confused than when I went in. The main antagonist, or whatever he is, is a boy named Selwyn. He isn't even Welsh? He's also unreasonable angry all the time and very mean so boo to him, I say. Looked up his name on Twitter and of course people are fawning over him, because he's "broody". I'd just say he's evil and ugly but what do I know. I also don't really understand why the protagonist had to be 16. Like. I guess the out- of- universe explanation is that she wanted to write a YA book, which is fine. But in- universe it creates this thing where people in actual college are hanging around with a kid in an early college program. If Tracy Deonn wanted to set this book at her Alma mater, UNC, then why not,,,just make the protagonist a college student? Licherally, all she had to do was age her up a year and she could've been 17 in college. To be honest she could've stayed 16 and still been in college. I had a teacher in high school who had graduated high school at 16 and went to college at 16. So, not at all unrealistic. Especially in a book with literal magic. Also, this is more of a personal gripe. But years ago, I read a book where a black girl ends up dropped into some old school, white, campus sort of environment. Such as this one. And it starts out like. Oh ho ho, what's this school’s secret society up to. And it has 50 to 60 good pages of somewhat well-written exposition, mystery, plot and lead-up. Then all of sudden the book takes a big, swerving turn and next thing I know she's doing black magic and drinking GROUND UP NAZI BONES. That's what this book felt like, but it didn't even have a good lead- up like that one. Bree gets dropped into a magic system, that frankly wasn't made for her, as she self-awarely points out during the sea of exposition. To that, I implore: If the magic system wasn't made for you, why try so hard to be a part of it? Like I get the point of this book is to solve her mother’s death, real sleuth style, on her big Nancy Drew shit. And for her to discover the magic within or whatever. But once that's done? What's the point in fighting to be part of a magical system started by some confederates at a third-rate state school. (Please don't take this the wrong way. I, too, graduated from a third-rate state school not at all that far from UNC. Hence why I am a third-rate, fake lawyer named after a post of absolutely hilarious old school names). But this is, once again, my issue with the current market of YA books. Why must we rewrite every old system and attempt to make it something it wasn't? Why not create our own system? Or use systems that were created in our image? Why must we try to rewrite the Greek gods for the 100th time and this time! Make Zeus a woman! Zeus wasn't a woman. He was a male- fashioned, God- entity with horrible morals by any standard of the time period. That's what he was, and always will be. Why do we need some sort of re- fashioning of King Arthur's tale but make a black woman the protag and call it a day.  What does that do? Who does that serve? I gotta give this a 1 boy with a Welsh name out of 5 boys, none of whom are even welshsjzjkdi. It's not even a bad book, I guess, it just don't make no gatdam sense. Which I guess makes it a bad book. Oh well.