Review: Half Wild by Sally Green

Half Bad was an amazing book, no doubt about it, and I was thinking that this series had the possibility to be one of my favourites after reading it. Having just finished Half Wild, that statement has been blown out of the water because this series is now so much more than that. I am desperate for it to be 2016 already so I can read the final book because after all the ups and downs, twists and turns in this book, I feel more than a need for the conclusion to this trilogy.

I have said this in my previous review I believe, yet the concept of black witches, white witches, half bloods and half codes is something that still really astounds me because of what a different and great idea it is. In this book we got to explore their interrelations a little more as they were all in one place and had to work together. The concept that not all white witches are good and not all black witches are bad could be seen as an almost mushy idea, but I think it is important as it can be applied to our own society. We judge people before we know them based on their family or their religion or their race and we shouldn't do that. In the context of this novel, yes, the black witches do have a tendency to be more violent, but then you have to compare it to people like Jessica and Soul in the white witch group who are doing much worse things than some black witches will ever do.

Death was also a major theme in this book that really stood out to me. When this book started, Nathan had killed, but he had not killed many people and I could tell from the way the start of this book was written that he was remorseful as a result of doing that. 'War changes people.' I am not sure where I have heard that quote before, but I can see from this book that it is very much true. Killing has become almost a second nature to Nathan, which I do not think is a good thing, but it is vital for what we will see him do in the future. I will be interested and scared to see is some of Marcus' more violent nature has passed onto Nathan in the next book.

Nathan's Gift was starting to be explored in this book and it was very intriguing to see the inner battle within Nathan for the control over the animal part of himself and the eventual realisation that he could not control that part of him just as a lion tamer never truly controls a lion. He had to accept that the only way for him to accept this new part of him was to accept the animal within him rather than fight it. I think that the time he spent with his father really helped Nathan to get a grasp on what he should do with his Gift rather than push it to one side and only let it out when he needed to do something for himself.  I wonder if the Gifts that he now has can be combined - that would be good to see in the final book!

I feel like I cannot write a review on this book without talking about the romantic interests within it. When reading the last book I did think that Nathan and Annalise could work as a couple when we saw the time that they would meet every week, however as soon as Gabriel was introduced, I started to drift away from that idea. This book confirmed to me even more that I did not want Nathan and Annalise to be together, but instead I would prefer Nathan and Gabriel to be together, just as I'm sure Gabriel would. I won't make any comment about Nathan's feelings apart from that he seemed to be trying to convince himself that Gabriel was his friend, rather than telling Gabriel what he actually felt.

I am very thankful to Sally Green for introducing the idea to us that Nathan is bisexual (there are also other sexualities I'm aware he could be, but to me this seems like the most simple explanation at the moment so I'm going to roll with it) without the internal drama of 'oh I like a guy, is there something wrong with me?' part. Nathan accepts it as something that is natural rather than something he should shy away from and no one seems to be in any way homophobic about it. I think that more books should accept it as a natural thing, instead of something that needs a long and thoughtful thinking process over it.

The end of this book left me craving more as I am excited and nervous to see what will happen to my beloved characters, of which Annalise is not one. I also hope that we can see more of Nathan and Arran being brothers again because that was something that I really liked reading about from Nathan's childhood in the first book.

Overall, this series is planning out to be one of my absolute favourites and if you haven't started Half Bad or Half Wild yet, I would really encourage you to do so!

(Goodreads parallel)

Review: Half Bad by Sally Green

This book is another that I bought quite a while ago, never got round to reading and I'm now regretting the time I spent not reading this book. It has everything that I would want in a book about witches and more.

This book starts off in the second person and I was so surprised by that that I had to put it down for a few seconds to process that. I am not saying that having something written in the second person is bad, I actually loved that part of this book was, but it is such a rare thing to see. I think this may be the first book that I have read that is partly in the second person, or that has the second person in it at all in fact. Having the start of the book written in this way was very important though because it signified part of Nathan's life and how he had to hold himself back, so when it switched to first person I could really notice the difference in his character.

When I started this book, I had almost no clue what was going on, but having a whole section of the book dedicated to Nathan's life before was a superb way of telling the story. It meant that I found out things as Nathan did and that I was able to relate to him much more as a character when the book came back to the present. I don't agree with some of the things he and others did while he was younger, but it was good to have some aspects of the characters that I didn't like because it meant that they seemed more real.

The world of witches that Half Bad makes itself a part of intrigues me greatly. In previous books that I have read about witches there has always been the idea of good versus evil, but with this book you are condemned to whether you will be good or bad from birth, which, although I find a little mean on both the Black and White witches, although mainly the Black, sets such clear boundaries that once you are over, you are well and truly over. The distinction is so clear that in a way it reminds me of the unfortunate views some people have about an entire race, age group or gender based on their experience with one person.

So much happened in this book that I was almost overwhelmed. I feel like I went on an incredibly long journey with Nathan and grew to know him as well as I know myself. As a result of its length, this book had many characters, but I feel that they were explored in enough depth as was appropriate. If you know everything about every character then a book can become boring and in a world such as this one, having secrets is important.

Even though I have rated this book as five stars, I would probably say that it is more accurately four and a half. There was nothing in particular that I can pick out as wrong with this book, just that it didn't totally do it for me. Sometimes you have to make a final judgement on a book based on feeling and although this book was absolutely amazing, I don't feel that it can be a full five out of five stars.

I am really looking forward to getting to read the second book in this series as I cannot wait to find out more about Nathan's life and journey through that.

(Goodreads parallel)