Name: Half bad
ISBN: 9780670016785

Green, Sally (Novelist)

In modern-day England, where witches live alongside humans, Nathan, son of a White witch and the most powerful Black witch, must escape captivity before his seventeenth birthday and receive the gifts that will determine his future.

Half bad

Melissa Palmer

Book #62 Read in 2015
Half Bad by Sally Green (YA)

Nathan is half white witch (good) and half black witch (bad). His white witch mother is dead and his black witch father has never been around and is feared by most of the witch community. Which parent will Nathan take after? The Council is keeping close tabs on him to see. This book, while almost 400 pages, is a quick read and has a plot full of action and twists and turns to keep readers engaged. I think both high school girls and boys would enjoy this book. I have the sequel, Half Wild, in my TBR pile. 

http://melissasbookpicks.blogspot.com

Sally Green

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. Easy. 'Edgy, arresting and brilliantly written, Half Bad grips you from the first page and doesn't let go.' Michael Grant. 'A brilliant debut that is both deeply unique and unsettling, one that chilled me to the bone and broke my heart even as I sped through its pages. This will haunt you.' Marie Lu

Half Bad

Charlotte Dann

Aishling

aynur

Alexander Aguirre

Quite a good reading, short, emotive and interesting. No way I could get my thoughts out of the plot while I was or wan't reading. Let's see what Marcus and Nathan are up to.

the first 300 pages were just child torture and the last 100 pages were just gabriel being in love with nathan. however, it was pretty entertaining to see how rose tried to get them together (may she rest in piece)

sophia

the first 300 pages were just child torture and the last 100 pages were just gabriel being in love with nathan. however, it was pretty entertaining to see how rose tried to get them together (may she rest in piece)

+ the conversations that nathan had with himself in his head were kinda funny lol kid’s got a sense of humor

Karoline Nørskov Hansen

Emelie

I really enjoyed this book. Something happened all the time and u Didnt really want to put it down!

sophia n

i have a really strong love/hate relationship with this book lmao. i got almost constantly frustrated reading it. i wouldn't recommend this to many people, but ... i did enjoy it? i literally can't with this book, it's so frustrating lol. i dnf'd the second book i'm so sorry i just couldn't do it.

as an aside, to be fair to this book, i don't think i was in the right place to read this at the time when i did. maybe one day i'll reread it and give the trilogy a chance again.

Elisa Bieg

I LOVED this book.

The world building is not flashy, but very convincing; the MC is imperfect, well-characterized, and incredibly relatable despite his unique circumstances.

The story is told in alternating timelines, with frequent flashbacks, and yet it takes shape flawlessly, seemingly effortlessly. I have no idea how she pulled that off! Alternating present-time narration with flashbacks more often than not makes my head spin and I am constantly conscious of having to adjust to a different moment in time. Not so here: it all simply contributed to the world-building and to outlining our MC's story, personality, and circumstances.

I feel it's only fair to give a shout-out to the really awesome narrator/voice actor interpreting the audiobook, Carl Prekopp. He does an incredible job, and I will readily admit I have emerged from this audiobook with a huge crush (not sure if it's on the MC or the narrator — don't ask).

I need the next book IMMEDIATELY.

But first I should tell you that I'm giving this 5 STARS :-)

Annie

Sandra Tammaru

This book was so good in the sense that it was fast-paced and gripping and I was fully paying attention all throughout. It gave me Schwaab's 'Vicious' vibes for some reason, even tho the plots were not alike, and as I loved Vicious, I loved Half Bad! It was quite different from my recent reads and that is part of the reason I liked it sm. It revolves around witches but it was different, original, the take on witches was fresh. The book had a voice of its own and that is what I enjoyed most.

** spoiler alert **
           3.5

okay so yeah the first book is not that bad. for starters we have to acknowledge the racism that is here and in this society.

the first part is the best, is kinda heavy bcs of what is happening in there and how they treat nathan but is okay. however the second part is... idk kinda disappointing??? is rushed, is cringy too in some parts, some stuff doesn't even make sense bcs how the fuck did rose died lol

everything was overly dramatic in the last part and exaggerated too. is like those are parts of two differents books tbh 🧍

and don't get me started on some characters BCS I SWEAR annalise is annoying and she doesn't have a personality, nathan is annoying when is about annalise DEAR YOU DON'T KNOW HER you are just obsessed bvs she was nice to you (which is understandable). rose is not that bad except when she is in fangirl mood like that's so cringy.

MARCUS IS A WALKING JOKE. THAT'S IT.

and the "romance" in general in here is so poor written, well relationships in general??? mostly???

arran and nathan relationship is really nice tho one of my favs and is luckily well written not like some of the rest. bcs even if i like nathan and gabriel together, writting that gabriel is already in love with him like wtf that's so out of nowhere 

and the ending is really mediocre tbh, is like ok??? that's it??? everything is so rushed in the last part i swear

and i will not talk about the references a futures parts of the trilogy bcs that's just purely evil :)

and well that's it. is not that bad but is not great either, is nice and the best part is the first one, later it just gets poor so i enjoyed it, probably it was mostly bcs of nostalgia tbh but well not the worst I've read

“An enthralling fantasy in the Harry Potter tradition.”— Time magazine “A bewitching new thriller.” — The Wall Street Journal In modern-day England, witches live alongside humans: White witches, who are good; Black witches, who are evil; and sixteen-year-old Nathan, who is both. Nathan’s father is the world’s most powerful and cruel Black witch, and his mother is dead. He is hunted from all sides. Trapped in a cage, beaten and handcuffed, Nathan must escape before his seventeenth birthday, at which point he will receive three gifts from his father and come into his own as a witch—or else he will die. But how can Nathan find his father when his every action is tracked, when there is no one safe to trust—not even family, not even the girl he loves? In the tradition of Patrick Ness and Markus Zusak, Half Bad is a gripping tale of alienation and the indomitable will to survive, a story that will grab hold of you and not let go until the very last page.

Vilde

Intriguing concept of white and black. Nathan's voice was well noticed in the novel, although the pacing was rather.. slow at times, it gives the reader a real impression of him as a character. The second half was a lot of jumping back and forth with the characters, and I did enjoy it at the time, not so sure if I would if I've read it at another occasion. In conclusion — in other words, an hit and miss read for readers.

Caroline Mao

3.5 stars.

This book was different from what I expected, but not entirely. Writing style first, because it's always been important to me, even though I often find the style of books I read to be too unremarkable to say anything about.

Half Bad has a certain poetry to it. It reminds me of a mix of Patrick Ness and Laurie Halse Anderson; lowercase chapter titles, the not entirely unexpected poetic phrase scattered throughout the narrative, disjointed fragments for thoughts, and a narrator who seems a little bit distanced from reality. While it was a bit more informal, less poetic, after a while (kind of like Shatter Me), I still liked it enough that it compelled me to keep reading. I especially liked the beginning, the whole mystery of it—what's going on, and why is Nathan doing all of this? We don't even know that much about witches or Half Codes, or about his backstory.

Characters: I liked Nathan at first, but after he started getting exposed to more people, I started liking him less. As the narrator, he was my lone companion, but when others got introduced, I started finding them a lot more interesting. By the end, I really didn't like him, although I didn't hate him either. I didn't like the way he treated other characters, because while he's received a lot of mistreatment himself, it's still not okay. (view spoiler)[Doing things like beating Gabriel was not okay. (hide spoiler)] My favorite characters would be Marcus, Celia, Nathan's mother, Ellen, Rose, Jessica, and Arran. Marcus, Celia, and Jessica I appreciate for their ruthlessness, their fight for survival, and for the first two, their dimension when they softened toward Nathan. They're still all abusive, terrible people in their own right, but I liked them a lot. I didn't really like Gabriel that much, or Mercury, or pretty much any of the others. Bob was a nice one, though—I can relate to an artist.

The plot was pretty decent, but nothing interested me too much. The way Nathan narrates is, like I said, so distanced from reality I was unable to feel any true flickers of alarm when something bad happened. The only part I really cared about was (view spoiler)[when Marcus showed up at the end. I expected him to be a stereotypical cruel, evil father who would laugh at Nathan for ever having any hopeful thoughts about him, stomp on all his dreams, and demonstrate that he didn't care at all about either his mother or his son. That didn't happen, and I found that I got to like him quite a lot during his brief appearance. (hide spoiler)] Without that, this book would just be a flat three stars.

Overall: I liked this, even if it wasn't entirely what I expected (so many Nathan/Gabriel shippers on Tumblr, yet I couldn't care less about it? I don't know, I suppose there's more of it in Half Wild, but I can't say I cared for any of the romance at all.), and I'll definitely read the next book.

Amy Maddess

roosmarijn

okay i promise i'll write a review one day as soon as possible maybe tomorrow maybe never hopefully soon

Maria

какое-то жалкое подобие левой руки, даже не знаю, как еще назвать. в ревью на первую книгу девочки, я видела, ахают, что это "северус снейп, отрочество". ну не знаю, по-моему, от снейпа тут только длинные черные грязные волосы, а уж про писальское мастерство хочется и вовсе промолчать (но я не промолчу). писательница салли грин, кажется, думает, что единственный способ вызвать у читателя какие-то эмоции по поводу героя - это пытать его, бить, ломать ребра, жечь до мяса, резать на нем что-то, ну и так далее. полкниги у нее мальчик вообще сидит в клетке в кандалах. а еще я пошла почитать спойлеры к концу трилогии, и выяснила, что к концу она убила всех, кого он любил, а в конце - и его самого! что это за фейспалм, я не понимаю, настолько не справиться с собственной историей, чтобы прикончить героя, ради которого некоторые трилогию читали. думаю, с таким писательским скиллом салли грин вообще стоит как-то бросить это дело, ну нельзя так беспомощно барахтаться

Tiffany Robinson

I had trouble getting into this book at first and I thought for awhile I wasn't going to finish it. It did eventually pick up though and I found my self really enjoying this. I now need to know what happens next!

Sofía Beltrán Martín

Olivera Mitić

Alexis 

I unfortunately didn't care much for this book. I found that I was very bored and didn't really care about anything that was happening. Just a very average read for me.

sam k

Read for the OWLs readathon 2020: History of Magic. Thoroughly enjoyed, a little bit dark which I appreciated too. Even though I’ve my other OWL books to read, I’ll be starting the second book as well!

Anastaciya

this is one fast paced book... not sure I even had the time to get invested... an interesting writing style. it's 2,5 stars from me. starting the next book now, feeling unsure.

Half bad

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