Half Bad by Sally Green

This book starts off with a Shakespeare's, Hamlet quote. 'There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking it makes it so.' This is a really good start. most verses, quotes or poems at the start of books do not have anything to do with what is actually happening. This does. Nathan is half white/half black witch. His mother being a white, his father being a black. Who is constantly accused of being black from the start of his life.

In the opening Nathan is in a cage. Literally locked in a cage by a white witch he must work day in, day out and run miles with a wristband on that contains acid. If he runs to far this band breaks open spilling the acid over him. At this point in the novel you are Nathan, Nathan is you. I thought she wrote this well, but at first I was a bit confused but got where she was going after the first page. He tries to escape. It do not work.



It then switches to how he ended up in the cage. Nathan and his siblings are brought up by their gran, a lovely woman. Out of his siblings only his brother likes him and one sister ain't that bad, his other sister is always cruel to him telling him he's a half code non-white. He is never given a chance from an early age even though his gran tells him he is a white witch others always remind him otherwise. He has to have assessments, to test if he will go white or black. Which courses him to start hating them. They push and push him until he can take no more. As shakespeare's line goes 'thinking it makes it so.' They basically push him to the dark side. No black witch has treated him as a criminal.

He is in love with Annalise who is a white witch and is kind to him even when no one else is which is a light in the darkness to him. At one stage in the novel her brothers beat him and carves his back with B on the left and a W on the right. It carries on like this the white witch council puts more and more demands out about what he can or cannot do until he is eventually not allowed to even breathe without them saying otherwise.

And then he's back in the cage which he do eventually get out of. The council turn up for him to do more tests and he escapes from the council building. But unless he can get someone to give him three gifts on his seventeenth birthday to become a full witch, he will die. So he goes to a black witch named mercury who will, for a price...... He has to kill his own father. (What a Damn bi***) Of course he can't, but then his father turns up with three gifts.

He returns to mercury's who is now holding Annalise hostage basically. Her demands being he bring his father's head or his heart, or he will never have her back.

 I love Gabriel a friend he makes along the way. I wouldn't mind finding out more about him, he seems interesting in his own way.

I'm not sure what I think of Annalise in truth.

I really felt for Nathan he was given no choice to be something better, which I have no doubt he would of been.

I enjoyed reading about each and every character (including baddies). I WANT more black witches in the next book. Like really, really. I've read enough about the horrible, boring white witches to last a life time......
I wouldn't mind seeing him come into his own a bit more and taking down some hunters (a few white witches who train to take down black witches.)

I thought it was a bit slow paced but the plot was amazing, so it could of been a hell of a lot faster! I felt, for me as the end neared it had only just really began. It left me wanting more thats for certain. I'm actually reading Half Wild at the moment so as soon as that's done my review will be posted. I hope it's as good as what i'm thinking after the end of this.

Go read this book, but you might want to think about buying the second one at the same time as it really only just gets kicking and screaming half way through (more towards the end) who am I kidding I liked even the boring bits. so you'll need the second book handy, after the last page you will want to know what goes down......

I'm off to read HALF WILD *Rushed wave* *Happy smile*