Sorry I've been a non-blogger recently, but while I take time to revise (there will be updates from my Easter soon I promise!) here's another book review to delight you with.
This was another 2-day speedy read. It's really easy to just fall back into this story and the language isn't challenging at all. Authors who try to be fancy with their writing style really irritate me. I'm there for the story, so tell it to me.
That being said, this is written in first person so I was a little lost for the first few chapters, but the story does clear itself up pretty quickly.
It's set in contemporary Britain (to start with), but in this version witches exist- White and Black witches to be specific. Instead of muggles we have fains (non-magic folk) who feature very rarely. White witches use their magic for good and black witches use their magic for evil- but this is one of the ideas that comes under questioning within the book. It's based around a boy called Nathan, who is described as a 'half code'; his father is a black witch, the worst of them all called Marcus and his mother was a white witch. As a result the council of White Witches keep him under close observation.
When every witch turns 17 they are given three gifts and drink the blood of their ancestors, as a kind of initiation ritual into adulthood. Nathan realises he will be denied this right due to his parentage and believes that he will die as a result. Therefore he goes on the run from the council in search of someone who can perform the ceremony: his father.
The book seems to be based on the quote from Hamlet by Shakespeare: 'for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so'. An interesting idea that has definitely been explored in other novels, but never quite so literally as in Half Bad. The discussion over whether Nathan is intrinsically evil and whether the actions of the council being for the protection of white witches really is good occurs early on and openly within the book. I found that engaging, but at the same time wished it could have been more subtle.
This book is perfect for all lovers of Divergent in particular, simply because Nathan is a slightly more violent version of Tris.
However, I loved Divergent and I can't really say that I loved this- it's a great read, certainly, but not something I would jump to read again. There was a lot of scenes where Nathan is alone with his thoughts and after a while the lack of other characters to engage with meant that he was going around in circles.
It really picked up when he was on the move again, largely because it involved him travelling to Geneva! (That is the only real spoiler you get). It's not described in any great detail, which is a shame, because it would have been great to have that The Fault in Our Stars moment that Dutch people had when reading about Amsterdam. However, Green (Sally, not John) does mention travelling to Switzerland for another setting that features in the book, which is always comforting to know that it's not just from a copy of Lonely Planet that inspired her.
All in all, I think it's worth a read to make your own mind up, certainly a great YA novel, but I would recommend my other reads from the holidays beforehand.
On a quick side note- how cool is it that Penguin do YouTube Trailers for their books! Here's the one for Half Bad:
No comments:
Post a Comment