Half Bad
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4.5 • 120 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
In this “highly entertaining and dangerously addictive” (Time) thriller that inspired the Netflix show The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself, a young witch’s only method of escaping his captors is gaining his magical powers—unless they kill him first.
“An epic journey.”—D.J. MacHale, New York Times bestselling author of Pendragon and Sylo
Wanted by no one, hunted by everyone . . .
Sixteen-year-old Nathan lives in a cage: beaten, shackled, trained to kill. In a modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live amongst humans, Nathan is an abomination, the illegitimate son of the world’s most terrifying and violent witch, Marcus. Nathan’s only hope for survival is to escape his captors, track down Marcus, and receive the three gifts that will bring him into his own magical powers—before it’s too late. But how can Nathan find his father when his every action is monitored, when there is no one safe to trust, not even family, not even the girl he loves?
Half Bad is an international sensation and the start of a brilliant trilogy: a gripping tale of alienation and the indomitable will to survive.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A stellar debut, this thrillingly original teen novel has been published in more than 40 countries. Half Bad—the first book in a trilogy—is the story of Nathan, a boy who threatens the fabric of a society divided into the ruling white-witch caste and the outlawed black witches. This beautifully written tale does for witches what the Harry Potter series did for wizards, hooking us with an unforgettable protagonist and nail-biting action.
Customer Reviews
It wasn’t half bad
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Half Bad
This story of Nathan, a mixed-blood witch who is not trusted by either white or black witches, unfortunately had resonances of racial prejudice, even though the author goes to lengths to make it clear that 'white' doesn't equal good and black doesn't equal bad. Apparently being mixed blood IS a problem, however. The story is told rather simply and with sympathy for Nathan, who has never known his black witch father, Marcus. Raised among his dead mother's white witch family, he is accepted and loved by all but one of his half-siblings, but he is marked by the white witch leadership as one who must be suspected and evaluated each year for evidence of black witch tendencies. The police-state mentality of the white witches, who obviously think they are the good witches, shows many ugly ways to disregard the rights of Nathan, the mixed-blood 'freak', in order to protect the white witch population, who live amidst the fain (normal human) population of England and Europe. We never learn much about the society of the black witches, but apparently they try to kill white witches. In turn the white witches have a class of witches called Hunters who are skilled at locating, tracking and killing black witches. Somehow Nathan manages to fall in love with a young white witch named Annalise, getting them both in trouble. Soon Nathan is taken from his grandmother's care and isolated as a prisoner of a guard-witch who confines him and regulates his life with reward and punishment conditioning. As his 17th birthday nears, and he will become a full witch, is he being trained to kill his own father? This is one of the threads of storyline that keeps this plot moving and makes the reader engage in the book. Does Nathan even know his own mind, and what kind of witch he will become? Does his father even know about his son's life of doubt and torment? Does he care? These are ingredients that work to keep the pages turning quickly. There seems no doubt that a sequel must be in the works.
Great book
Better than I was expecting. I can't wait to read the sequel.