{"id":45565,"date":"2025-10-16T22:16:29","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T02:16:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=45565"},"modified":"2025-10-16T22:18:39","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T02:18:39","slug":"review-of-oathbound-by-tracy-deonn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=45565","title":{"rendered":"Review of Oathbound, by Tracy Deonn"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Oathbound<\/em><\/p>\n

by Tracy Deonn
\nread by Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Andrew Eiden, Hillary Huber, Tim Paige, and Adenrele Ojo<\/p>\n

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. 25 hours.
\nReview written July 28, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
\nStarred Review<\/p>\n

25 hours listening to Book Three and the series still is not done! Fair warning about that – but honestly, with the kicker ending to this book, I’m not upset – I want to hear more.<\/p>\n

This series is growing on me. I think after listening to Book Three, I’m willing to call myself a fan. I liked the concept of Book One<\/a> – a Black girl destroying expectations by proving herself to be a part of a magical secret society of descendants of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. I thought that was what the series would be about. <\/p>\n

But Book Two<\/a> showed us, right at the start, that of course the white men accustomed to ruling the Order wouldn’t put up with that. And we find out that Bree has another kind of magic from her Black foremothers, and she meets practitioners of that art – all while seeing scenes from Arthur’s life as he, too, tries to control her. And basically Book Two was pretty confusing for me – different kinds of magic, different practitioners, lots of “dreamwalking,” and I wasn’t even sure who Bree was really in love with.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed Book Three, though. I didn’t worry about remembering what went on before and got the idea pretty quickly. It seems like she’d established how the different kinds of magic worked in the earlier books, and now it was easier for me to simply accept what’s happening. In this book, Bree is trying to learn to use her power apart from Arthur – apart from all her friends, too. (Oh! Something I appreciated was that Arthur was hardly mentioned in this book. Every single time the narrator said the word “Author,” I couldn’t help myself and said “Arrrthur” under my breath – this happened much less in Book Three than it had in Book Two.)<\/p>\n

This book progresses at a leisurely pace – 25 hours! – and I think could have been done without so many viewpoint characters. But I especially liked what’s basically a heist set-up in the last half of the book – and getting to become clear on which one is actually Bree’s love interest.<\/p>\n

And there’s a huge kick at the end – that packs a punch precisely because of what you’ve learned during the course of the book.<\/p>\n

So, yes, this series is growing on me. Bree Matthews is a character you can’t help but root for. One thing’s for sure – the white patriarchy shouldn’t underestimate her.<\/p>\n

tracydeonn.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/oathbound.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

Subscribe<\/a> for more reviews and talk about books.<\/p>\n

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oathbound by Tracy Deonn read by Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Andrew Eiden, Hillary Huber, Tim Paige, and Adenrele Ojo Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. 25 hours. Review written July 28, 2025, from a library eaudiobook. Starred Review 25 hours listening to Book Three and the series still is not done! Fair warning about that – but honestly, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,42,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","category-starred-review","category-teen-fiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45565"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45809,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45565\/revisions\/45809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}