A review by poirots
Half Bad by Sally Green

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Hm, I think I've read too much of the trope of the main character being half of this side and half of the rival side and I don't find it interesting anymore. Same with the romance: the typical outcast and... the exact opposite of that. Maybe I've been reading too much fantasy lately. I don't know. It just didn't captivate me so much.

Towards the end, though, the pace started picking up and I appreciated the book a lot more. Throughout the book, the sole focus is on Nathan, our main character, which is understandable, sure but I like it when the other characters have some development or something put into them.
Like what happens to Celia afterwards?!
I feel like I didn't get to know them well and Rose especially was beginning to be one of my favourite characters.
Of course, she ended up dying... which was so out of the blue by the way!
I think there was a lot of things that happened out of the blue. Things like:
Gabriel liking Nathan (Not going to lie, I was like "Wait what?!" when I read it and then "Aww" straight after ahaha I just didn't expect it and I don't think there were many hints of it -- which is surprising because I like to think my gaydar is pretty good, Rose dying, Nathan killing Jessica even though he was so adamant that he wouldn't kill anyone apart from Keith and Clay... Hell, I forgot Nathan even had siblings.)
The last few pages felt rushed but I did like how it ended and the moment(s) it ended on.

The plot was too... slow? Not even slow, we just never got anywhere -- I think our protagonist spent the majority of the book in captivity doing fuck all. Other than that, it was an okay read. I'm probably going to read the next book in the series and I'd still recommend others to read this if they like fantasy and don't mind the occasional second person narrative.