Half Bad Blog Tour: Review

A wonderful debut from author, Sally Green.

Nathan is between good and evil. He is a half code: he’s half white witch and half black and therefore is on the edge of conflicting worlds – not really belonging anywhere. This is a fact that the council, his half-sister and the purest white witches don’t want to let him forget. 

He is a prisoner of the council, being put through assessment after assessment, wondering whether each time is going to be the moment he’s given freedom as a white witch or whether he will be condemned and will face a darker future, if one at all.

His father is the most notorious black witch and the more he learns about his dark ancestry, the more he has to try and live down a reputation in the real world as he approaches his seventieth birthday and the traditional giving ceremony. He also wonders about his father. He wants to search for him and meet him. 

This book is the first part in the series focusing on Nathan as a child and his struggles as a teenager. He is trying to find his identity when he feels as though he doesn’t fit in anywhere and is being constantly told that he’s not good enough. 

I empathised with Nathan. I think he only wants acceptance and a chance to find out who he is and the freedom to do so. He has many people around him telling him what he needs to do and what he can’t do and I loved how his character develops over the course of the story – he developed into a stronger character. As chaos grew around him, he adapted and began to discover what he was capable of. 

He does struggle between two sides of himself and I’m intrigued to see how he does and what direction he will take in the later books. 

Sally Green sets the scene and atmosphere well and it was easy to imagine the surroundings. The pace and tone of the narrative (it’s told from Nathan’s point of view,) added to the conflict and danger which gradually grew as the chapters went on. It did slip into second person POV for a chapter which I did find strange (simply as it’s a rare thing for me.) 

The fairly short chapters helped me as it made it easy to put down and pick up – not that it was easy to put down in the respect that I didn’t want to stop reading. 

The end had some great cliffhangers. In my opinion, a great start to what promises to be a fantastic book series that will appeal to both adult and YA. 

Half Bad by Sally Green is published by Penguin £7.99 paperback

Sally’s blog tour for Half Bad stops off at Jessheartsbooks tomorrow so be sure to check that out along with the other stops on the tour. Details are displayed on the tour banner. 

by

Laura

I’m Laura. I started Novel Kicks in 2009. I wanted a place to post my writing as well as give other writers like me the opportunity to do the same. There is also a monthly book club, a writing room which features writing prompts, book reviews, competitions, author interviews and guest posts.

I grew up by the sea (my favourite place in the world) and I currently live in Hampshire. I am married to Chris, have a cat named Buddy and I would love to be a writer. I’m trying to write the novel I’ve talked so much about writing if only I could stop pressing delete. I’ve loved writing since creative writing classes in primary school. I have always wanted to see my teacher Miss Sayers again and thank her for the encouragement. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything I can get my hands on, I love reading, dancing like a loon and singing to myself very badly. My current obsession is Once Upon a Time and I would be happy to live with magic in the enchanted forest surrounded by all those wonderful stories provided that world also included Harry Potter. I love reading chick lit. contemporary fiction and novels with mystery.