Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

 genre: young adult fantasy

When Bree arrives at UNC Chapel Hill, she is still deep in her grief over the loss of her mother.   Going to college early as a high school student has been Bree's dream for so long and now that she's there, she knows she should just move on and try to find happiness in her new motherless life.  Except on the night before school starts, Bree sees something she shouldn't and what she sees and what she does about it is going to change everything that Bree knows about the world as well as her place in it.

I don't even want to tell you more because this story is so fantastical, the world building is so astonishing, it'll be more fun if you figure it out yourself as you go along.  Yes, it's 100% Arthurian, which typically is not my thing, but THIS is such an interestingly intersectional, powerfully imaginative take on the legend that it was almost hard for me to wrap my brain around it all.  I LOVE Bree's arc as a character, the way her history and abilities and desires warp and mesh into this incredible part to play.  The last fifth of this book had my head spinning with revelations and where the story could go next.  My only two complaints, and they are small but kept niggling at me, are that Bree is so young (at sixteen) that I had a hard time completely falling for her as completely capable as she is, which now that I'm done doesn't seem fair, but it was there.  I also felt stressed about her being at college but never seeming to actually DO much school at all, which is my anxiety-ridden brain but as a college story set on a college campus, that is the stupid thing that kept coming into my brain.  I have actual nightmares in real life about forgetting to go to class, so this isn't surprising and will probably only bother me :)

YES.  If you love young adult fantasy, intricate world building with folklore and legend roots, Black and fierce and capable female main characters and storylines that will take you to places you might not dare to imagine, this one is for you :)