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3 stars! This review will contain no s p o i l e r s!
Summary:
Nathan is an abomination to the White Witches. He was born a Half Code, Half White witch and half Black witch. Not only is he half Black witch, but he is the son of the most notorious Black witch, Marcus. Because of this he has been emotionally abused, physically tortured, shackled in a cage, and trained to complete a task he knows he will never do by the White witches who stole him from his family. In order for him to survive past his seventeenth birthday, the day he becomes a full witch, he needs three gifts and the blood of his ancestors. To do so, he must escape the eyes of the White witches, and this is where the story takes off.
This book was a good solid 3 star read for me. There were a few slow parts that I had to slug through and some parts that I felt were entirely unnecessary, but some really good parts were in there too. The good parts were either really emotional, suspenseful, or full of action or a combination of all those! And the last 100 pages on their own were FANTASTIC. I don't know what it is, but I've been reading a lot of books that have been up and down through the whole book but then the endings are just killer. I'm really glad I read to the end and ended up liking this book enough to continue with the trilogy. Sadly, if I don't like Half Wild, I probably won't read Half Lost.
Plot:
Again I thought the beginning of he plot wasn’t attention getting. An interesting aspect of this book was how a few parts were in second person, so you are literally seeing though his eyes and experiencing exactly what is going on in his head. At first, this was hard to get used to, but after getting to know Nathan, seeing through his eyes became easier.
So Half Bad is cut into many parts and the beginning of the book puts you in present. So you get to see his horrible living conditions and his captor and the torture he is going through. Then the next part tells you how he got to that point, so you’re going back in time. Holy crap, we went way back in time. Here is where I felt the story start to drag. Part II was so long, and though certain chapters were really good, others just felt unnecessary.
I feel like there was also a lack of world building too? I didn't really know enough about the politics, the witches themselves, how their powers work, etc. I just needed more from the world. These details could have replaced those chapters that I didn't really care for.
The next couple of parts got increasingly better. The writing felt more focused and purposeful for the plot. I believe around part four is when I started getting into my routine of trying to make predictions about what may happen next because the events stopped being stop and go stop and go and more back to back if that makes any sense.
The one thing about this book that was really good through and through was the ending. I was really engrossed in the last hundred pages. Lots of action and feels in this section! Basically when you meet Gabriel is when I finally started liking this book more. It’s because of Gabriel that I’m actually going to continue reading this trilogy.
Characters:
We really only get a few flushed out characters, but some side characters are pretty likable like Nathan’s brother Arran. We don’t get to know a lot about him other than he really really loves Nathan and cares for him, and just knowing that alone (that they’re brotherly relationship runs very deep) made Arran feel like a whole character.
The girl characters, that are not Rose, were pretty much just faces to me. Really didn’t get to know much about them, or if I did.. They were kinda forgettable.
We get to know everything about Nathan obviously, since he’s the main character. I actually like his personality. He’s basically been dealing with being the most hated child in his whole community his entire life, even one of his own family members (omg Jessica, I hate her) would rather have him dead. It’s really so sad, but he really grows from it. He doesn’t deny what the White witches would call his “bad” side, the Black witch side.
Gabriel was my little white light in this book. He is so adorable and fearless and I SHIP IT. I can’t say what I ship because it’s spoilery, but know that I do. 100%. 110%.
The villains are written quite well too. Very cruel and horrible. I can’t even tell who is the bad guy really. I’m still guessing. I feel like it’s both the Whites and Blacks, but I guess I’ll see in the books to come. They’re all infuriating in a the good way villains are supposed to be infuriating.
Thank you for reading! :)