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A review by betwixt_the_pages
Half Bad by Sally Green
4.0
Sixteen-year-old Nathan lives in a cage: beaten, shackled, trained to kill. In a modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live amongst humans, Nathan is an abomination, the illegitimate son of the world's most terrifying and violent witch, Marcus. Nathan's only hope for survival is to escape his captors, track down Marcus, and receive the three gifts that will bring him into his own magical powers—before it's too late. But how can Nathan find his father when there is no one safe to trust, not even family, not even the girl he loves?
Half Bad is an international sensation and the start of a brilliant trilogy: a gripping tale of alienation and the indomitable will to survive.
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Quick Reasons: unique world; intriguing ideas/new twists to the "good vs evil" cliche; endearing, lovable character; mystery, thrills; hard-hitting themes of social justice/abuse
First and foremost, the writing of this book is a little bit...strange. For one, it's written entirely in second-person POV (I/me/you). This is a hard thing to maintain consistently over even a short amount of pages; writing a novel using it had to have been pretty difficult. It also makes it a little bit harder to read.
There are only a few momets where we read it as “you”; most of the book is told by Nathan, from his own perspective. I found it interesting, as we went along, and wonder if perhaps the choice to start out the book using “you” instead of “I” (and switching to it at least once more before the ending) has a deeper meaning than it appears. But that's a theory for a different day, not this review.
The characters—depending on which side they fall—are either easy to love or very, very easy to hate. As most of the world is either out to “get” Nathan...or to use him for their own designs...most of the characters we meet fall on the hate side of the line. To be honest, I only really loved Nathan, his Gran, Arran, Deborah, and Annalise; while it appears Gabriel is on Nathan's side (in fact, it's alluded that Gabriel has stronger feelings than friendship for Nathan), I can't say for certain this is the case. As it is, I didn't get a strong sense of connection with Gabriel in this book.
The rest of the characters are deplorable in their actions and treatments of Nathan. Being the only Half Code, the entire world is against him from the start; it becomes clear, early on, that most people would rather see him run over than given a chance. Which makes the title—and the entire premise of this novel—into a question of a different caliber.
The whole world seems adamant that because Nathan is “half bad,” he will be more prone to use his Black Witch powers...and become evil. But when you tell a person often enough, for a long enough period of time, that they're bound to turn out one way or another...they start believing it themselves. Is Nathan REALLY bound to be “bad”...or could he, with the right words and help, prove the rest of the world wrong? Can people really change their "fates," if they want to badly enough?
The writing of this book is interesting. The characters are well-developed, for the most part, and maintain themselves throughout. I didn't notice much character growth here; Nathan stays pretty much the same from page one to the end, which isn't such a good thing. I'd have expected a lot more change, in one regard or another, but even at the end, he still has a sort of childish naivete to him that I find hard to comprehend.
This world intrigued me; the fight between White and Black Witches maintains an expose on social justice that's well-done: hard-hitting and thoroughly disturbing in turn. I'm interested to see what happens in the next book(s). Will definitely be continuing this series later.
Half Bad is an international sensation and the start of a brilliant trilogy: a gripping tale of alienation and the indomitable will to survive.
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Quick Reasons: unique world; intriguing ideas/new twists to the "good vs evil" cliche; endearing, lovable character; mystery, thrills; hard-hitting themes of social justice/abuse
First and foremost, the writing of this book is a little bit...strange. For one, it's written entirely in second-person POV (I/me/you). This is a hard thing to maintain consistently over even a short amount of pages; writing a novel using it had to have been pretty difficult. It also makes it a little bit harder to read.
There are only a few momets where we read it as “you”; most of the book is told by Nathan, from his own perspective. I found it interesting, as we went along, and wonder if perhaps the choice to start out the book using “you” instead of “I” (and switching to it at least once more before the ending) has a deeper meaning than it appears. But that's a theory for a different day, not this review.
The characters—depending on which side they fall—are either easy to love or very, very easy to hate. As most of the world is either out to “get” Nathan...or to use him for their own designs...most of the characters we meet fall on the hate side of the line. To be honest, I only really loved Nathan, his Gran, Arran, Deborah, and Annalise; while it appears Gabriel is on Nathan's side (in fact, it's alluded that Gabriel has stronger feelings than friendship for Nathan), I can't say for certain this is the case. As it is, I didn't get a strong sense of connection with Gabriel in this book.
The rest of the characters are deplorable in their actions and treatments of Nathan. Being the only Half Code, the entire world is against him from the start; it becomes clear, early on, that most people would rather see him run over than given a chance. Which makes the title—and the entire premise of this novel—into a question of a different caliber.
The whole world seems adamant that because Nathan is “half bad,” he will be more prone to use his Black Witch powers...and become evil. But when you tell a person often enough, for a long enough period of time, that they're bound to turn out one way or another...they start believing it themselves. Is Nathan REALLY bound to be “bad”...or could he, with the right words and help, prove the rest of the world wrong? Can people really change their "fates," if they want to badly enough?
The writing of this book is interesting. The characters are well-developed, for the most part, and maintain themselves throughout. I didn't notice much character growth here; Nathan stays pretty much the same from page one to the end, which isn't such a good thing. I'd have expected a lot more change, in one regard or another, but even at the end, he still has a sort of childish naivete to him that I find hard to comprehend.
This world intrigued me; the fight between White and Black Witches maintains an expose on social justice that's well-done: hard-hitting and thoroughly disturbing in turn. I'm interested to see what happens in the next book(s). Will definitely be continuing this series later.