Half Bad

Picked this up because a book about witches from a male POV is a rare find and relevant to my interests. It does have a lot of Harry Potter parallels as mentioned in many reviews but it's unique enough that you can easily forget about that and is less similar the farther you read.
In this world, there are white and black witches with a lot of violence between them with the whites being the governing side and blacks mostly being independent and solitary. Upon turning 17, both types are bestowed 3 gifts and blood from a relative in order for their specific gift to appear, though they exhibit certain magical abilities before that (namely faster healing). The main character is half black and half white and is heavily discriminated against because of it to the point of outright abuse. As his 17th birthday approaches, he is ripped from his grandmother and half siblings, experimented upon by whites, isolated from society - but eventually is able to escape and goes to seek out one that can give him his gifts for fear that he'll slowly die without the ritual completed. There are a lot of different rules the witches have to live by both governed by The Whites and by magic itself (example: Nathan can't sleep inside without weird headaches because of his Black heritage and can also sense/feel electronic pulses from cell phones and TVs for some reason).
The biggest issue I had with the book is that it switches between 1st to 2nd person POV between chapters though it's all from Nathan's POV. Also some of the rules mentioned above don't make a lot of sense. In this world, being born into magic seems like an awful violence-filled short life.

I loved every page of this. And the ending—SO PERFECT. Cannot wait to read the next book.

REVIEW:

Okay, so I'll start by saying I haven't read a book about witches that I really loved since Harry Potter. Not that there aren't any out there (there are), but one hadn't really caught my interest until Half Bad.

Well. I was on the fifth page when I realized this was very likely going to be a new favorite. And I was right.

First and foremost: THE VOICE. If you're a YA writer looking for a great example of powerful, immediate, raw voice, pick up this book immediately. Nathan's voice is so real and intense and I honestly could not have loved it any more.

Secondly: the second-person POV. There are indeed sections of second person POV, including the opening, which I was pretty surprised to read. But holy wow, it worked so well! Ms. Green broke the rules on this one, and it really really worked.

Now the characters and the plot. Half Bad has you question right from the start who the good and bad guys are. There isn't a clear-cut this person is good, this person is bad element, which I absolutely adore because gray characters, to me, are so much more realistic and interesting than morally 100% good/evil characters.

What made all of these even better was the pacing—even in the flashback sections that show us how Nathan ends up caged—are full of tension and conflict and events that had me racing through the book to find out what happens.

Overall, I absolutely loved Half Bad. It's now one of my favorites and I can't read to get my hands on the sequel, Half Wild. If you like dark, intense YA Fantasy, I couldn't recommend this one any more.

This was actually such a fun read. I know this will give him a big head but I have to say I am so glad that Wylan pushed me to pick this up.

Half Bad was such an addicting read. I found that once I began the very first chapter I struggled to put it down again. I instantly fell in love with the world-building.

I've seen a few people attempt to compare Half Bad to other books and I want to say that I don't think it's possible. I don't think there's any book or series quite like this.

This is me remaining quite cryptic when I give a review because I refuse to give any spoilers. Let's just say that the minute I started to get the feeling of the book, I was obsessed.

Half Bad is the perfect first book to a series and I can't wait to continue to emerge myself in this magical, brutal and fantastic world.

I suppose it's a good sign when the book ends and I can't believe I don't have anymore pages to turn! The story is left with a nice big cliffhanger, in fact right in the middle of a battle. Aside from the abrupt end I was captivated by this book and am looking forward to the next. The storyline dealt with the theme of mistreating people who are different. Nathan is a half black witch, half white witch and no one can see the white side. He is simply part black witch and assumed to be evil. He has a few people that see behind the labels that have been thrown at him, but too few to actually let him live his life free of torment. Nathan was a character I wanted to see progress, I wanted to see him become stronger and prove everyone wrong. The plot was a little disjointed, skipping around at first until the author finally decided to stick with a linear flow. It wasn't hard to follow though, as Sally Green labeled the points in time she was going to talk about; I think if it had been written any other way it wouldn't have been as interesting. Green made sure to lay out the events in a way that built my sympathy for Nathan and allowed the reader to begin connecting with him. Let's face it, who hasn't been bullied in their life? My heart broke for Nathan as the punishments grew worse and no one bothered to listen to him. In a way I hope he strikes back at those who hurt him in the next novel, even though it means Nathan will become a different person.

This is one of those books where I read this all in one day because I couldn't put it down, but now I'm like, “Was it even good?” I DON'T KNOW I just had to find out what happened, so that's something, anyway? It's...I don't know? A great start to a trilogy (I checked out the other 2 but haven't started them yet), an interesting magical world...not totally fleshed out but it is the series starter after all, so I'll see where it goes. It's got kind of a hurt/comfort fanfiction vibe to it, which I'm not at all opposed to.

Seri ini memberikan cerita yg agak berbeda tentang para penyihir. Ada 2 jenis penyihir, penyihir putih & penyihir hitam. Sesuai namanya penyihir putih merasa jadi pihak yg baik sedang pihak yg jahat itu penyihir hitam. Ada pula namanya blasteran (anak penyihir & bukan penyihir/faint) dan bastar (anak penyihir putih & penyihir hitam.
Nathan adlh bastar, seumur hidupnya orang2 mengasumsikan dia hitam karena separuh hitam & kebetulan ayahnya adlh penyihir hitam paling kejam saat itu. Berkali2 mendapat perlakuan tdk adil karena asumsi itu hingga membuat dia hidup di kerangkeng. Dia pernah mendapat petunjuk untuk mencari penyihir bernama Mercury spy dia bisa mendapatkan anugrah di ulang tahunnya ke 17.
Sebenarnya bagus sih, namun sayang ada sempilan konten LGBT sedikit.