Oh. My. God. This was one of the best books I've read in a long time.
I went into Legendborn expecting it to be another average YA Fantasy, but oh my gosh it was so freaking good and it shocked the living hell out of me.

I got a lot of Shadowhunters vibes from it, for obvious reasons (Legendborns are the world's protectors against Shadowborns AKA demons), and some Ninth House vibes even though we saw very little academia in this book.
But what surprised me most was the King Arthur lore, which is something that I've never read about or even seen in a novel before so I was very surprised to find out that It's actually interesting and a good idea for a fantasy book.

Spoilers will be strewn across this review, so read at your own peril.

I absolutely loved the idea behind Bree, but not so much the execution.
Throughout the book, we saw Bree go through multiple racist situations and we basically saw her get angry on the inside but nothing came out of it, and I was not a fan of that.
I liked Bree as a character, since I haven't read any books that have a strong Black woman as the lead, it felt like a fresh take on the main character. I've also enjoyed the amount of Black culture Tracy Deonn featured in this book, again because I don't think I've read any books by black authors featuring a black woman as the main character.
I absolutely loved it every time she was taking care of her hair, the way she spoke of her hair with so much love and adoration, you don't see that a lot in fantasy books so I'm glad I got to see something new.
Side note: I DIED for the little detail where Bree and her Grandmother interacted, absolutely hilarious and a wonderful detail to put in the book.

I was absolutely shocked, flabbergasted, surprised to learn that Bree was the actual Scion of Arthur.
Like I did not see that coming, not at all, how exactly would it occur to me that an ancestor of hers got raped by a Scion of Arthur, thus leading to her being the ultimate one?
I just have to say this, the whole business of the Davis and Reynolds families was messy as hell and I still don't exactly get whatever that was about.
Point is, that was one hell of a twist because I literally did not see it coming.

Bree's powers on the other hand, are a mess lol.
So she's both a medium AND a scion of Arthur? Did I see the latter coming? Absolutely not
I guess that explains the separate blue and red mage flames on her arms, featured in the book's cover.
I'm really looking forward to seeing how this whole mess works out in the sequel.

Nick was an absolute sweetheart, the ideal book boyfriend and I can't saw more about that because I also happened to fall for Nick.
He was sweet, caring, compassionate and he loves Bree so much that their scenes together just made me genuinely happy and content.
BUT then Selwyn came in revealing ,what I already knew, that he's a damaged, complex and beautiful soul on the inside and I was like Bye Nick! I'm team Selwyn now.
Bree can literally smell his aether (which sounds mega sexy) and can feel him whenever he's around her and looking at her, you can't tell me that's not something you want to see happen in the sequel, especially now that Nick has been abducted.

I enjoyed the LGBTQ representation in this book, even though I wish we got to see a bit more of William's relationship, Selwyn's bisexuality and Greer's non-binary life, mainly because we got glimpses at them and nothing more than that.

Now, the side characters I ended up loving most were Nick (for obvious reasons), Selwyn (for reasons mentioned earlier), William (because he was the most gentle and lovely person in this book, surpassing Nick in his own way).
As for the ones I did not like, Vaught was hardly a well-written adversary, he was just there being mean and a bully, which was too basic for my liking.
And Lord Davis being the main villain of the book felt alright, didn't shock me at all. What did shock me was the stupidity he exhibited when dealt with the Bree/Alice situation, like he just threatened her, then let her leave with Alice with no consequences, and a couple pages later they just put on jeans and go back to The Lodge like nothing happened.. The f*ck was that about?

I'm very, very excited to read the sequel (it better come soon) and I did not expect to say that about Legendborn, but here we are.
A very well-written book, and an extremely solid and interesting debut.