Review: Half-Bad by Sally Green

Title: Half-Bad
Author: Sally Green

Release Date: 3rd March 2014

My Rating: 3/5 stars

 

Blurb on Goodreads: Half Bad by Sally Green is a breathtaking debut novel about one boy's struggle for survival in a hidden society of witches.

You can't read, can't write, but you heal fast, even for a witch.

You get sick if you stay indoors after dark.

You hate White Witches but love Annalise, who is one.

You've been kept in a cage since you were fourteen.

All you've got to do is escape and find Mercury, the Black Witch who eats boys. And do that before your seventeenth birthday.

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I gave this book a 3 star rating. That doesn’t mean to say that it isn’t any good because it is, it’s really good. I just feel like there are some issues with this book that prevented it from reaching it’s full potential.

The book isn’t particularly ‘supernatural’ focused, despite being largely about witches. It is more like a life story of the main character, Nathan. Nathan, being the spawn of both a White Witch- the ‘good’ kind- and a Black Witch-the ‘bad’ kind- is a Half Code. He is as far as we know and are told the only one of his kind. Living with his White Witch grandmother and full White siblings, Nathan is under constant scrutiny and mental harassment, with everyone bar his grandmother, his brother Arran and his sister Deborah seeing his Black Witch exterior and failing to look at him as a person to see what he truly is like. He is taught to never mention his father, the most feared Black Witch and that he is to do everything he can to fit in with the White Witches, despite their despising him. As the story follows his journey and we watch him grow, however, we see him start to question what he has been taught, struggle to understand himself and fight for his life as he tries to find a way to receive his 3 gifts and become a fully-fledged Witch on his 17^th birthday.

The plot concept and characters were really interesting and helped differentiate this book from others that may be considered similar. The idea of two opposing sides of witches and its parallels to modern day racism was a fresh take of the whole ‘good vs. evil’ idea. There were plenty of characters and growth for the plot, so it didn’t feel particularly rushed or crammed which was great. I loved the concept of the White Witch council and the portrayal of their questionable values and less than angelic methods. It irritated me that the Black Witches were largely unexplored and that we only had what the White Witches told us to go on, however I’m guessing this was purposeful and that we’ll learn more in time as Nathan does.

Reading through Nathan’s point of view was intriguing. He isn’t particularly intelligent which shows in his thoughts and actions, however he is brave, strong-willed and a little bit desperate which really show in Green’s writing. His relationships are so straight forward in that he is very honest with himself. The people he cares for he cares for a lot, and the people he doesn’t he simply isn’t concerned about. Her writing is something that may not appeal to everyone (it definitely won’t appeal to everyone) and it takes a little getting used to for some I guess, but I personally enjoyed it, although some parts could have used some editing.

The pace of the books was pretty good. It felt a little slow at times which I’m assuming was meant to reflect how the days dragged for Nathan, but for the most part I wanted to read faster and faster, maddeningly curious as to what the hell was going to happen next! I liked how the book starts in the middle of the story, and then takes us back to how it started before we catch up and then continue with the plot. It made the first half a mystery which made it go by a lot quicker for me at least. In terms of characters I felt like there were alot of characters that werent developed rather than fewer characters but with bigger growth. there were charcaters like Arran and Nikita whom i would have loved to know more about and seen a developed a little more.  

My two biggest issues with this book though are the magic and the romance. For a book about witches and Gifts and all the rest of that wonderful stuff, you would think the magical aspect would be greatly developed. This however was not the case. I felt like Green barely skimmed the subject as was necessary when it rose to the surface, but other than that she left it largely untouched. I would have liked to have seen more about the Gifts that the Witches had, how they worked, what they used them for, how they categorised them,  anything that would have shown a little more thought. Instead the only thing I gleamed was the fact that women’s gifts were stronger, potions were popular and Nathan’s dad Marcus ate hearts to steal the gifts of others. That was about as detailed as it got. Even when we met characters like Celia, Mercury and Rose, the most we got was a brief explanation as to what they could do, and a couple of demonstrations. It was a big let-down in that department and had the potential to have been so much better.

The second issue was the romance. Annalise was a character that, on the brief occasions when she was there, aggravated me beyond belief. She was just so unnecessary. She was incredibly flat for a character, with no depth beyond the fact that she saw Nathan for the better person he was. She was so far from what I expected Nathan to be interested in, and was part of the story so briefly that I can’t understand why she was in there at all. This was the kind of book that would have worked perfectly fine without the romance element, probably even better.

Overall, Half-Bad is a book with a great concept and plot, a lot of varying characters (some developed better than others) and for the most part kept me intrigued and wanting to read on. I will most likely be picking up the sequel because I definitely want to know what happens next and I feel like the next book, Half-Wild, will be infinitely better.

Review: Thirteen by Tom Hoyle

Title: Thirteen
Author: Tom Hoyle

Release Date: February 13th January 2014 (I see what you did there!)

My Rating: 3/5 stars


*This book was kindly given to me by Macmillian Children's Books*


Blurb on Goodreads: "Born at midnight in London, on the stroke of the new millennium, Adam is the target of a cult that believes boys born on this date must die before the end of their thirteenth year. Twelve boys have been killed so far. Coron, the crazy cult leader, will stop at nothing to bring in his new kingdom. And now he is planning a bombing spectacular across London to celebrate the sacrifice of his final victim: Adam."

This book first caught my eye as I was perusing the YA section of my local Waterstones. The paperback is an attractively done bright yellow with yellow edges depicting a countdown to thirteen. There is no blurb on the outside, just one single line, creating an air of mystery and piquing my interest. I added it to my Goodreads To-Read List then and there! Naturally I was beyond pleased when I had the opportunity to read this on my Kindle and write a review for it.

This book had plenty of positives and just a couple of negatives for me. The very first thing that hit me as I started reading this book was that it was not at all ‘YA’ material, or if it is then the very young YA readers. The main character Adam and all his friends are thirteen years old or there about. A lot of the issues he deals with (asides from a crazy cult hunting him down of course) are therefore very innocent. I found it almost cute with the way he looked at life and how he felt about bullying as well as his best friend (kind of sort of turned girlfriend) Megan aka Meg. In that sense it was very much a younger children’s book. However, on the flip side, about half way through this book becomes really rather dark and sinister, a lot more so than would be expected in a younger child’s book which is why its YA I guess. This dark, twisted side was actually my favourite half of the book, as the story really picked up and started to live up to it's scary potential that was portrayed in the blurb.

The writing was really great in this book. Hoyle manages to put us into a thirteen year old’s mind set really well, paying attention to the smaller details that allowed us to see Adams horror and fear at the situations he was placed in and the strength he had in getting past that and being extremely brave for a kid. It was a little bit basic in some parts and I felt the descriptions could have been a little more detailed at times but on the whole it kept you reading and even depicted a little of the good old British slang!

The story is set in England, London and I felt that the writer was true to his location and didn’t just skim over the details of the setting. He describes London and weaves iconic buildings and tube stations into the story well, really giving it an authentic feel. The characters were great, both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’. Coron was a brilliant crazy cult leader. I loved how Hoyle showed us just how whacky he was, and how he believed everything he said to be true, but at the same time put just enough emphasis on the fact that Coron was in fact crazy and hallucinating. Adam was a really likeable character, and the way he fantasised about being a hero before talking sense into himself was really cute. He was very well rounded and definitely made me feel for him. Also, the recurrence of the number 13 and it's link to just about everything in this book was a great concept and added a feel of superstition to it.

Overall, this book was definitely not what I was expecting, however it was still an enjoyable read with a great plot and characters to match. It is definitely something I would recommend for a younger, male reader who enjoys books such as The Recruit by Robert Muchamore. I’ll probably have to pick this up in it's beautiful paperback form for my little brother!

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