2020 book 174

 Tracy Deonn's Legendborn

This YA debut has been getting a fair amount of buzz, and I was mildly intrigued by the concept—a teenage Black girl and modern day Arthurian knights fighting demons or something—but often I find YA fantasy annoying so was planning to pass on this. And then I discovered IT IS SET IN CHAPEL HILL. The protagonist, Bree, is in an early college program at UNC! Well, of course then I was dying to read it. The author clearly went to UNC and her details are spot-on (I am not sure we needed so MANY descriptions of the campus, but obviously I was here for it). Anyway, so the deal here is, Bree's mother died in a car accident, and when she sees magic stuff at UNC, she realizes she saw magic stuff the night her mom died, so maybe it wasn’t a simple hit and run? And also Arthurian secret societies? And a cute boy? And a million queer teens! (I can’t tell if the series is setting up a love triangle or a throuple, but honestly, hardcore rooting for the latter.) Not to mention literal Black Girl Magic, laying bare some truths about racism in the South, and basically telling Julian Carr to go eff himself??? Some really powerful writing about Black pain. Y’all, I went into this a skeptic and it proved me wrong on every page. Even if it didn’t talk specifically about UNC (one of my alma maters), I would think this book was AWESOME. Freakin' A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on September 15th.