(The Half Bad Trilogy #1)
Publication Date: March 4, 2014
Hardcover, 394 pages, Viking Books
Genres: YA, Paranormal
Wanted by no one.
Hunted by everyone.
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.
My Review
The premise
of this book sounds fantastic! Good witches vs. bad witches, dark magic vs.
light magic, and a boy who’s stuck in the middle. Unfortunately, the concept
fell a little flat in the actual writing.
We start out
in second-person point of view. I don’t like second-person point of view. I
don’t want to feel like I’m getting the crap beat out of me or that I’m stuck
in a cage outside. Now my characters can feel this—and of course I’ll feel
empathetic towards them—but I read books to get away from my life and my own
problems, not to add even worse problems to my head that seriously mess with my
mind. Thankfully though, the book switched to first person pretty early in.
Then somehow we go from experiencing Nathan’s situation being abused by his
captor, to getting the backstory of why he was there in the first place.
This was a
very odd way of telling the story, simply because a lot of the scenes were told
from his childhood perspective and those scenes ended up taking up almost half
of the book, thus there was very little actually happening in the story that
furthered the plotline that was mentioned in the first few chapters, the ones
that were in second person pov.
This writing
style was also rather confusing. At times it was hard to tell exactly what age
Nathan was and where he was in time. At one point I thought he was about 14 or
so, but he was only 10. That really needs some clarification.
I’ve heard
people say this is a character-driven book. I totally disagree. While it is
true that we spend a lot of time in Nathan’s head, I just didn’t feel that
Nathan developed as a character. I also never felt connected to him at all.
Sure, like I mentioned earlier, I empathized with his situation, but I didn’t
enjoy his character. And because we’re stuck in Nathan’s head so much, we don’t
get a lot of character development for the rest of the characters either.
The plot of
the story was just boring. There were pages upon pages where nothing
significant would happen, then, when something would happen, it wasn’t all that
exciting. I also had to reread some parts simply to figure out what exactly was
going on.
Now, the
major reason I read this story, besides the fact that it’s a paranormal book
and those are my favorite kind, was because I heard there was an LGBT element.
Paranormal books with good LGBT plots are rare. (Okay, so they might not be as
rare as I make them out to be, I’m just a picky reader.) So I was waiting…and
waiting…and waiting for this male love-interest to show up. And when he finally
did, I was underwhelmed. He made his appearance in the last 20% of the book and
he was a not very well drawn out character. Boo.
All in all,
if you’re looking for a good paranormal book, I’d suggest looking elsewhere.
This book may have an interesting synopsis, but it just didn’t work well in the
actual story.
*Note: I purchased a copy of this book for myself.
P.S. I’m
trying out a new font style (Arial instead of TNR, because it’s better for
online reading) so tell me if you like it or not. Thanks!
