"ˏˋ°��*⁀�� 3.5 stars

i have complicated feelings about legendborn.

i really liked the arthurian legend aspect and how the story ties it into bree’s grief, her identity, and her sense of belonging. the way it explores generational trauma and the weight of existing in a space not built for you really stood out. as a Black girl in these secret, powerful societies, bree’s experiences are written with care, and that part of the book hit hard.

i also liked the worldbuilding and magic system. it felt solid and planned. the side characters had distinct voices, and most of them were genuinely likable. this isn’t one of those ya books where only the main character exists while everyone else is background noise. so in a lot of ways, this really worked for me.

that said, this also felt like a very typical ya fantasy �� and i don’t mean that as an insult. there are all the expected tropes: hidden powers, secret societies, love triangles, a mysterious dead parent. it’s familiar territory, but comfortingly so. but the biggest issue i had was how bree seemed to just know or understand a lot of magical concepts without the reader getting to learn them with her. there were times i was genuinely confused by the terminology or mechanics of the system because the book assumed i already knew what certain words meant. it felt uneven.

as a non-american reader, i also found myself aware of my distance from the cultural framework the novel operates within. especially when it comes to race, history, and southern american context, there were moments where i felt like i was grasping at meaning without quite catching it. that’s not a flaw of the book, but it did shape my experience.

so yeah. parts of it i really loved, parts i struggled with. but it’s easy to see why this book is important and why it resonates with so many people. i’ll probably continue the series. i want to see where it goes.

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okay i have a lot to say. review to come!!!

ˏˋ°��*⁀�� pre-read

book club’s pick of the month. as always, i’m late 😭 but i’m so excited for this one. everyone i usually trust has rated it super high so fingers crossed 🤞"

"I struggled with writing this review. There wasn’t anything that I could think of that I really loved about this book, but I didn’t it hate either. It was just okay. So, we’re sticking with three stars.

Look, I like smut, but I found it to be excessive at times in this book. I mean there were like 7 chapters in a row of smut just for their one-night stand. For context, this book only has 34 chapters. I get that Sawyer and Ava’s romance is insta-lovey, but I still wanted the author to spend more time developing their emotional connection on top of their physical one.

I adored Sawyer. He was sweet and caring and probably the main thing I enjoyed about this book. However, I had trouble connecting with the female lead and it’s why I didn’t end up fully appreciating the romance between them.

I also found that the author does a lot of telling rather than showing. I mean Sawyer is described as being a caretaker who always looks out for his family, but I felt like it was Sawyer’s siblings who was making Sawyer’s load lighter and not the other way around. With Ava, she is described as a free-spirit who can’t be tamed, but the author doesn’t really do anything that affirms that. All of Ava’s talk about not being a lady-like wife and needing to be free was a bit cringey and weird too. The development of her character did not make sense to me honestly.

All in all, there is nothing groundbreaking about this series, but it satisfies my need for cowboy romances when it hits."

Alyssa Nieves is on page 52 of 428 of Phantasma: "A house of Devils is no place for an angel like you."

🤭