Book Review: Half Wild by Sally Green

YOU ARE PLOT DEVICE!!!!

After finally meeting his elusive father, Marcus, and receiving the three gifts that confirm him as a full adult witch, Nathan is still on the run. He needs to find his friend Gabriel and rescue Annalise, now a prisoner of the powerful Black witch Mercury. Most of all he needs to learn how to control his Gift - a strange, wild new power that threatens to overwhelm him. Meanwhile, Soul O'Brien has seized control of the Council of White Witches and is expanding his war against Black witches into Europe. In response, an unprecedented alliance has formed between Black and White witches determined to resist him. Drawn into the rebellion by the enigmatic Black witch Van Dal, Nathan finds himself fighting alongside both old friends and old enemies. But can all the rebels be trusted, or is Nathan walking into a trap? 

There are going to be spoilers for the first book in this reviews so you haven't read that and don't want to be spoiled. Leave now and go to my review of the first.

There is a love triangle in this book. Different in two aspects, the centre is a boy and we still have two boys. This isn't a real triangle (most ain't because for it to be a true triangle the other two would have to get on too inside the canon). One of the angles, is not really a character, she is a plot device. I can understand Nathan's attachment to Annalise because she was first person outside his family to be nice to him. But as a reader we know nothing about her, I have no attachment and even though Gabriel is over top with his attachment, we know him and care about him. Him in danger effects me. Annalise just doesn't feel like a character to me, she is a damsel in distress. Anything she does and has happen to her in this whole series just feels like plot, meaning having her as love interest is boring and pointless. She could just be a childhood friend and Nathan feels he owns her. In this book defense, a lot of books fallen into this trap of just telling us the characters love each other and give no reason why: No show, only Tell. There is a least a reason, this is just more annoying in this case because Pixie Dream Girls are annoying and everywhere. If we just had one personal info about her that didn't involve any other characters, maybe she be more like a person and less problematic.

We have more flashback in this, in fact we have flashbacks of after Nathan escaped. I found this to be weird. Like why didn't we hear about that then if it was so important, though the writer did say she should have planned more in acknowledgements and this is her debut series. Just a sentence instead of some of the flashbacks would have been fine.

This time big players are even. If have read my last review, I found the fact that the big players mostly being men unrealistic (and boring) when women tend to have more powerfully gifts and witches value that. That being said, wouldn't be cool to have a female villain that's just straight up evil. One can only dream (or get writing). One of the players doesn't make that much sense to me and I don't believe that this character would ever be given a role of that much power and don't feel I can say more without spoiling things. 

The ending feels a bit rushed. I think certain scenes were rushed over or skipped completely near the end that were important for the characters and their relationships with each other. I would have liked a bit more development with these.

Overall, I gave this five out of five stars for letters. I still like this series and I enjoyed this book better than the first one. I think the setup we had in the first plays off and now we only have to wait for the final part of the trilogy to find out this wrap up well and we get a satisfying ending. I will see you next March where I will tell you if I think it does. I'm guess it coming on the 27th.

I got this book for review off Netgalley and it's being published by Penguin on 26th March 2014.

Book Review: Half Bad by Sally Green

I own two editions of this book because the design of this cover is awesome.

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?
  
This book was overhyped. When publishers/a mass lot of reviewers get excited about a book, it does more damage than good. I did like it and enjoy it, but I looking through this book reviews on goodreads a lot of people didn't like. Someone actually claimed that the whole book was a prologue, which is a nonsense and it would be annoying prologue. I think the problem with is highers expectations and people who would never pick up a book because the plot not really them, does pick up and guess what they don't like it but they got pressured into it (Note to self: do a video about over hyping).

This book is parts in the point of view main character and mostly in first persons, however, it is separated into parts and  the first part in seconded person. Not sure why that choice was made completely, except maybe it's normal target of engaging the reader but I did like how a scene was told in second and then first. I do the like the general sturcture of this book, with the parts and chapters.

The world building is interesting but problematic. Though, I don't think I can really judge in a proper critical manner till I've read the whole trilogy (or at least the second book). The book is plotted pretty well, the book ends where it should and is good start for trilogy. There is a tiny empty second half of the book, that is a bit lacking in realism. The ending is also sappy.

Some of the characters and relationships are good, some are just er...er. Nathan is a okay character, I cared about him, though a big problem with him is that he is given a characteristic that are ignore in the plot, lazy solved and it kinda bugs me. I can forgive it but having a similar characteristic myself it annoys me. There is romance in this book, but I know nothing about the main romantic interest except what find out from a I.D. and a family tree. She is literally just plot point, in terms of the plot that really bad thing. I don't care if we ever see this character again, except for Nathan's sake that can't carry a romance. There is sort of another romance that I feel is walking a tightrope as the end of this book (and not just because of love triangles). However, I care about the other party, we know personal stuff about this character and I want to see development instead of there being nothing to develop.


In this world, magic is meant to favour woman, woman tended to be stronger but it's strangely patriarchy. I'm not sure how to explain this without spoilers. I guess what I mean is by the end, almost all the big players are men and they are also arguably bigger players than that one woman. I don't know, I'm mean thinking about feminism in relation to media (which books do come under) so playing in the back of my mind, counting the genders of who influence the plot. Especially, since they don't have to be that sex. The woman are mostly just sisters (other relations as well) and dead. Some could say that it opposite of female lead YA books where woman are usually, no sometimes all the big players and men are dominant in the background. But no most YA still have mostly male villains so not the opposite at all. Something unsatisfying about this setup, it's no more sexist than most media but feels bit mismatching with the setting.

Overall, I give this book 3 out of 5 stars for bone samples. I originally gave this book 4 stars but in reflection it doesn't quite deserve that rating. There is a lot to discuss in this book and there are things set up in this book that could go terribly wrong in the next book so I'm anxious to see how things turn out. Though, I did enjoyed reading this novel and I want to see where this series is going. If I'm good then a review of the sequel will be out next week.