Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Christmas Present
Half
Bad by Sally Green is a breath-taking 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.
Easy.
If that blurb isn’t enough to make you read it
already, then hopefully this review will convince you.
When I first started reading this book, I must admit
for the first 50 pages I sat thinking, ‘what. the. fuck.’ The narrative of this
book is unlike anything I’ve ever read before which not only confused me at
first but intrigued me; I’d read half the book within a few hours.
The story starts with the reader being introduced to
a character that is in a cage, shackled and badly treated. We don’t know much
about him apart from he’s trying to escape. We discover Nathan has a wristband
on and his captor has told him that if he tries to escape, acid will leak from
this wristband and burn his hand off. (Not the most cheerful of starts to a
book!)
Before I explain any more, I think now is a good
time to briefly explain some words before I use them:
White
Witch – a ‘good’ witch
Black
Witch – a ‘bad’ witch
Half code – half
black/half white
Half
blood – half black/half fain or half white/half fain
White
Whet – a witch before their Giving (this happens on
their 17th birthday)
Hunters – White
Witches that hunt down Black Witches
Gift – once a witch has had their giving, they are given a ‘gift’, which they must find and control themselves
Gift – once a witch has had their giving, they are given a ‘gift’, which they must find and control themselves
Nathan is a half code
and his dad just happens to be the most infamous Black Witch of all-time. His dad is still alive and regularly kills
other witches, eating their hearts as he does so to obtain their gifts and use them himself. Nathan is
being held captive because the Council know of a prophecy that entails Nathan
killing his father and they want him trained and ready for it when the time
comes.
Nathan is being trained by Celia (his captor), who regularly
beats him and forces him to do gruelling exercises to obtain his fitness and
stamina for when faced with his father.
Whilst Nathan is captured, we get told a lot of his background
story; about his siblings, Jessica, Debrah and Arran and his Gran, who has
looked after him since his mother’s death. Nathan and Arran are extremely close
and you genuinely empathise with Nathan at his loss of Arran when he’s taken
away from them.
School is hell for Nathan as half-bloods are not seen as
pure and they all know Nathan’s father, Marcus. Everyone hates him, all except
one…
Nathan falls head over heels for Annalise, and she for him.
Annalise is as pure White whet as they come. Will their love conquer all?
When Nathan does escape from Celia, he is left to fend for
himself and seeks someone who will perform the Giving for him on his 17th
birthday. The Giving is performed by a parent and Marcus is all Nathan has
left. That’s his only option, isn’t it?
The rest of the book is the lead up to his 17th
birthday and his desperation in finding someone to perform it. Will he find
someone before time runs out? Will he get his Gift he’s so desperate for?
I honestly can’t rate this book enough, it is absolutely
exceptional! (I’ve also just finished the second book in this series, Half
Wild, which I will be posting the review of after this!) It is fast paced and I
finished this book in one evening, it’s extremely hard to put down.
Nathan and Gabriel are the central characters for the
majority of the book and I have fallen in love with Gabriel (even if he is gay
and totally inaccessible!).
I think the author has done such a magnificent job at
getting the reader to feel what the characters feel and empathise with them.
You find yourself genuinely rooting for Nathan and his friends every step of
the way. I love this book and am quite gutted I now have to wait for March 2016
for the end of the trilogy!
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