SincerelyTahiry ’s review of Bloodmarked (The Legendborn Cycle, #2) > Likes and Comments
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I had this same problem with the book. I found myself wishing the book mostly ignored the race aspect bc it felt like such a weird choice to so much about the book deal with triggering racism but Bree keeps sacrificing herself for those white boys (Nick is the most egregious one since his legal ancestors owned her and his father was a racist who tried to murder her. It didn’t feel like the romeo juliet love story it was meant to be.)
@panda EXACTLY!!! And that’s when I had to take a step back because my black ass would neverrrrr.
Thank god I’m not the only one who didn’t love this book! I agree that the action/plot/writing is amazing and what made me keep reading but the race aspect is heavy handed, too on the nose at times, and feels like it was thrown in at points just cause. I know Bree is 16 but like you said, a lot of her decisions don’t make sense. Not as a teen but especially not as a black girl.
I think you are forgetting she was still a HS student, in college. To expect her to act a certain way in itself might be a tad unrealistic. 🤷♀️
It definitely fell flat for me. I was one who raved about the first book. I didn’t take the time to re-read it though prior to this but now your review makes absolute sense. My politics are like yours and it was just something I couldn’t put my finger on that just wasn’t clicking for me this time around. The whole middle part I was just like ummmm… I think I’m done now. 😆 but I am still curious with how this is going to play out but man… them choices for Bree was just not hitting. For me I don’t think there was much character development with the entire cast. That bothered me. And the end… I was like wait you bout to do what now?? With who!?? Idk though maybe it will be an epic finish 🤷🏽♀️.
I'm so glad I found this review- I read Legendborn and immediately knew my review was going to be an 'unpopular opinion'. I actually told my friend that I suspect the reason it has been so highly reviewed is just because it's a 'black book' in the fantasy/dark academia genre and so many of us didn't want it to flop. Book one had so much going on, I didn't know what the main issue was really supposed to be. It was like she didn't know if she would get a second book agreed and so rammed as much into it as possible then ended it right when the action finally started after 500 pages of nonsense, to force us to continue with the saga.
The way race is tackled made me mad uncomfortable, Bree is so headstrong that she continues to exhibit zero ability for critical thinking, the narrative voice is whiny and the books are both wayyy too long and the descriptions are frantic.
Now, having read the second book, I am even more annoyed that I let myself get tricked into sitting through it all again loooooool
I’m biracial and I completely agree. She was acting so pick me even after she found her people. Like ughh
I finished Legend Born recently and I have the exact same complaints, from Bree not having any black friends, BOTH of her love interests being white and that not even being discussed/challenged/explored in the context of how she ended up being the scion of Arthur! Did not like that. I came to the reviews to see if any of this had been addressed in the second book because I really wanted to support this series, but damn.
Oh ladies! So glad I found you! I’m not alone!
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Panda
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Nov 09, 2022 11:13PM
I had this same problem with the book. I found myself wishing the book mostly ignored the race aspect bc it felt like such a weird choice to so much about the book deal with triggering racism but Bree keeps sacrificing herself for those white boys (Nick is the most egregious one since his legal ancestors owned her and his father was a racist who tried to murder her. It didn’t feel like the romeo juliet love story it was meant to be.)
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@panda EXACTLY!!! And that’s when I had to take a step back because my black ass would neverrrrr.
Thank god I’m not the only one who didn’t love this book! I agree that the action/plot/writing is amazing and what made me keep reading but the race aspect is heavy handed, too on the nose at times, and feels like it was thrown in at points just cause. I know Bree is 16 but like you said, a lot of her decisions don’t make sense. Not as a teen but especially not as a black girl.
I think you are forgetting she was still a HS student, in college. To expect her to act a certain way in itself might be a tad unrealistic. 🤷♀️
It definitely fell flat for me. I was one who raved about the first book. I didn’t take the time to re-read it though prior to this but now your review makes absolute sense. My politics are like yours and it was just something I couldn’t put my finger on that just wasn’t clicking for me this time around. The whole middle part I was just like ummmm… I think I’m done now. 😆 but I am still curious with how this is going to play out but man… them choices for Bree was just not hitting. For me I don’t think there was much character development with the entire cast. That bothered me. And the end… I was like wait you bout to do what now?? With who!?? Idk though maybe it will be an epic finish 🤷🏽♀️.
I'm so glad I found this review- I read Legendborn and immediately knew my review was going to be an 'unpopular opinion'. I actually told my friend that I suspect the reason it has been so highly reviewed is just because it's a 'black book' in the fantasy/dark academia genre and so many of us didn't want it to flop. Book one had so much going on, I didn't know what the main issue was really supposed to be. It was like she didn't know if she would get a second book agreed and so rammed as much into it as possible then ended it right when the action finally started after 500 pages of nonsense, to force us to continue with the saga. The way race is tackled made me mad uncomfortable, Bree is so headstrong that she continues to exhibit zero ability for critical thinking, the narrative voice is whiny and the books are both wayyy too long and the descriptions are frantic.
Now, having read the second book, I am even more annoyed that I let myself get tricked into sitting through it all again loooooool
I’m biracial and I completely agree. She was acting so pick me even after she found her people. Like ughh
I finished Legend Born recently and I have the exact same complaints, from Bree not having any black friends, BOTH of her love interests being white and that not even being discussed/challenged/explored in the context of how she ended up being the scion of Arthur! Did not like that. I came to the reviews to see if any of this had been addressed in the second book because I really wanted to support this series, but damn.
Oh ladies! So glad I found you! I’m not alone!
