An exclusive, signed hardback edition of Half Bad by Sally Green: the breathtaking debut novel about one boy's struggle for survival in a hidden society of witches.
Meet Nathan Byrn . . .
He's half White Witch, half Black Witch.
His mother was a healer, his father is a killer.
He's been kept in a cage since he was fourteen.
But if White Witches are good and Black Witches are evil, what happens if you are both?
'A book about witches with no owls and not a pair of round spectacles in sight. The new Hunger Games,I suspect... Brilliant and utterly compelling - I loved it.' Kate Atkinson, author of Life after Life and Behind the Scenes of the Museum
'Teens rejoice: the inheritor to Stephenie Meyer's crown has arrived.' Fiona Wilson, The Times
'Edgy, arresting and brilliantly written, Half Bad grips you from the first page and doesn't let go.' Michael Grant, author of Gone
'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, author of Legend
'Take our word for it, this book is going to be huge.' Stylist
'Brilliantly paced with more than a few nasty surprises, Half Bad is a wickedly addictive read that will capture the imagination of any fan of YA fiction.' Starburst
'Not since the Harry Potter books - yes, I said it! - have I felt so fully immersed in an author's creation... I couldn't be more stoked over Half Bad, and this launch novel of a trilogy truly deserves all the hype surrounding it - and much more...' Amanda Hurley, Inkwood Books
SALLY GREEN lives in north-west England. She has had jobs (paid and unpaid) and even a profession but at last has found the time to write down the stories she used to only be able to daydream about. She likes to read, walk in the country and would like to drink less coffee. Half Bad is her first novel.
I’ve heard a lot of good things about Half Bad and Sally Green’s writing in general, but if I’m being perfectly honest, this novel was a bit of a struggle for me. The world she was building, and Nathan’s story itself – all that was fine and lovely and well built and fascinating. It’s not the story I struggle with, but the speed of the story.
The format of this story is steady, but slow. It started well, in the. Idle of Nathan’s captivity, but then we go full stop and rewind to Nathan’s early childhood and work our way back up to that moment. While Green uses this time to create the world and establish the rules and to better understand the political atmosphere between the white witches and black witches, there never seems to be a change in pace. This is a constant problem for me in this novel – even when things feel like they should be heating up, they just… don’t.
I think that may be partially the writing style. It’s in first person present and that’s a bit of an uncommon tense and definitely took me through a loop. Maybe things feel dull because Nathan’s perception is calm and level. Additionally, this could have been a side effect from the narration. I never really felt like the narration was poorly done – the voice seemed to fit Nathan, but it’s possible the pacing may have read better to me if it had been my own perception of Nathan’s voice, so that’s a possibility.
The world itself is gruesome. There’s a lot of blood and bone and death and horror if you stop and pay attention to the words, to the language used. The world really is interesting, with edges of real history sliding into just the right places to make me uncomfortable. I see the early edges of Nazi Germany in the way the council treats half-codes and that in itself is interesting enough for me.
So while I struggled through the pace of the book, and the characters held nothing special for me, I do appreciate the political climate Green has set forth. At the end of Half Bad, we have experienced so much of Nathan’s backstory and the present – where the true story lies – is just beginning so I think I will stick around for book two… on a purely probationary basis. I’m curious where things are heading and how they will work out, but I’m not in love with the characters or the story… yet.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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1 December, 2019:
Finished reading
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1 December, 2019:
Reviewed