This started out 'meh', partly because it's been some time since I read the first book, but it finished strong. I'm going to pick up the last book right away.

I read this book in less than 2 days (which also includes me having a life and going to work).

 

I loved every minute of it. And I'm not afraid to say it.

So here's a problem. Sometimes once you read a really great book then after you read a pretty sub-standard book and you want to go back and update the rating of another book. Right now, I kind of want to go back and give Cress 5 stars just because after slogging through Half Wild I appreciated that book so much more. I have not been as disappointed in a book in a series since I finished Dean Koontz's Saint Odd (Odd Thomas #7).

I really liked Half Bad, but still hoped that Sally Green would take more care with regards to world building and adding in more details since a lot of time things would happen and there was no explanation. I think the author has all of these ideas in her head and they are just not making it into the final version of her books. Right now I think this book is a good outline and layers need to be included. Told in the first person, we continue the story of half black teenage witch, Nathan.

The plot of Half Wild picks up days after the events in Half Bad. We have Nathan still on the run from Hunters who will stop at nothing to kill him and his father Marcus. Nathan is searching for his friend Gabriel and also trying to come up with a plan to save his sort of girlfriend Annalise from a sleep spell.

Nathan should be a complex character. Too bad he's not. I have seen puddles with more depth than he has at this point in the story. Nathan should be torn. I get that. He was raised in a household that in terms loved and despised him. Then he was stolen away and treated like an animal for two years. Nathan's story grabbed me from the first in Half Bad. His current plight in Half Wild bored me to tears.

We have the introduction of two new black witches that have somehow found Gabriel and use that to lure Nathan to them. Instead of there being some question of these people not being who or what they claim to be, right away we find out that they are trying to build a faction of half black/white, black, and white witches to fight against the Hunters who are starting a reign to wipe out all black witches and anyone that is against their actions. That right there should have been the whole plot in this book. Instead we meander along with Nathan feeling torn and insisting that these new people and Gabriel put themselves in danger to free Annalise. It just added unnecessary padding to this book.

The character of Gabriel who I came to adore in Half Lies proceeds to act like a love struck teenager throughout this whole book. Gabriel who knows how dangerous the white witches are keeps doing his best at impromptu moments to get Nathan to admit to something between them. I felt badly at first for Gabriel. Heck we all have had that person that we liked that l didn't like us that way. Instead we have Gabriel acting like a brat at times about Nathan and Annalise. Heck I love that there is potential for a same sex relationship to be included in this book. It was just clumsily done here. Maybe it is because we get to hear Nathan's thoughts and we know that he loves Gabriel, just not that way. I think with how the whole book was going, that readers could have been spared typical teenage angst every other chapter when people were trying to murder them and they were going around killing people.

Other characters in this book had little to no depth to them at all. Annalise might as well be a bowl of oatmeal (with no sugar or milk added) at this point. I really liked this character in the last book. I got why Nathan was drawn to her and why he loved her. This book turns her into a shrill crying teenage girl with no brains at all.

I think the main issue is that the group of witches that were supposed to be fighting the white witches just had no personalities at all besides them still not trusting one another. The leadership seemed splintered and all we would hear when people were training is that they seemed to be running. There was no explanation of people practicing their gifts or using spells, etc. You would think that more people would be up for this cause considering the events we hear described, but instead it sounds like we have maybe 6 adults and a bunch of teenagers running around in the woods "training".

The writing needs to be fixed pronto. We just have Nathan's voice to guide us about people, settings, etc. and besides him describing every freaking person's eyes that he meets, there is not a lot going on there detail wise. This book just has things happening and we hear how he feels about it and it is written in such a clumsy way. For example, say Gabriel says something to Nathan and Nathan feels badly that he can't respond in a way that Gabriel likes. We have Gabriel speaking and then Nathan saying I wish that I could feel something I feel so torn and I know that Gabriel can see that in my face. Um. What? Just say it. Say words.

It doesn't help that it makes no sense that apparently a bunch of witches are being murdered/tortured/experimented on and no one is doing anything about it. And why are the non-magical not noticing a thing? That is one of the big problems of this book for me. It is not realistic that all of these events keep happening in a vacuum with no one figuring it out.

The pacing was really not done well. I think it is because each of the chapters are maybe 3-4 pages long and there is not a lot of time to build up suspense since we just have Nathan and party going from place to place getting into skirmishes.

Half Wild takes place in Europe in cities and that's all I can really say about the setting. You really would not know that since there is no description of anything to give a person a sense of landmarks at all besides people saying here and there that the European witches are trying to flee.

The ending was so bad that I just laughed at some point. It makes no sense the events that happened and we have Nathan having no common sense since he blames one person for what happens instead of him realizing that another person was more to blame and he should be more angry about of instead of him and his quest for vengeance which I guess will make up most of book three. I don't like quitting a book series before I get to the end. However, in this case, I will happily just skip book three. I hope that Ms. Green is given more time to set up the story, expand the world building in this book, and actually write her characters' more consistently and sympathetically.

Initial reaction: Seriously, I want to love this series. I want to love it. There are parts of it that I want to applaud and sing praises for Sally Green at least in the idea of where she wants to take this series, but honestly - the execution leaves much to be desired. Much of this book I felt like I was waiting on my hands for something to happen, and when finally something significant and engaging does happen, it's near the end of the book.

I'll finish out this series, certainly, but I hope the last book isn't this plodding for details and development. Not holding my breath on that though, since this pretty much had the same problems as the previous book, with a few new ones to match.

Full review:

Okay guys, soapbox coming. I wasn't really a fan of Sally Green's "Half Bad" and I was on the fence for following the trilogy into its second book, "Half Wild." Yet, my curiosity always gets the best of me, and I did admit that there were some moments of "Half Bad" that I actually liked. It was just that it wasn't developed enough for the world and realm and I felt a disconnect with the overarching narrative and MC (Nathan).

This book pretty much features the same problems as the last one in my eyes, verbatim. Seriously there was really no improvement from the last book into this one for content with respect to narrative pacing or establishing a greater connection with Nathan as a protagonist. *sighs* And that frustrated me greatly. Nathan is still just at arms length for most of the narrative and for all the things that have happened to him, I can't seem to sympathize with his plight.

In this book, it's a little clearer why because for a great measure of the book, nothing seems to happen. Nathan makes plans of what he wants to do, but doesn't act on them, and has all encompassing thoughts of Annalise as he tries to figure out a way to save her and get out of the bargain he made - to kill his father Marcus. The book does showcase Nathan struggling with the power inside of him - a beast who seems to relentlessly kill, but it's hard to get the urgency of that situation half the time because of the way Green chooses to narrate it - either in flashbacks or at a distance where it's not immediate or jarring enough to thrill the reader (at least *this* reader, anyway). Character deaths in the beginning and middle of this novel seem to happen quick and without much resonation or consequence, and that also frustrated me. I wanted to feel the tension and consequences of those scenes, dangnabit. Why would you want to skip over that or otherwise lack the intimacy needed for those scenes to hit home?

This was yet another case in which the secondary cast was better than the purported leads (Nathan and Annalise). I loved Gabriel's character - I almost wish that he'd be the leading character of this series than Nathan because he had so many dimensions to feel for, between his grief over nearly losing Nathan and his affections, as well as his overarching role in the conflict and the losses he's suffered; I just connected with him better. Plus, I want to ship him and Nathan. I really do. Even more rare in consideration, I don't see many GLBT relationships in a magic dystopian thriller like this one and I want to say "PLEASE MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!" I just wish Nathan had more development behind him than what it's currently showing and the way it chooses to show his plight.

Nesbitt was an okay character and interesting enough for comic relief in places, while being a flawed character in and of himself for his role in the narrative. I don't know if I liked the fact he was crafted with so many Aussie personality cliches, but I did appreciate his role in the story.

I was glad to see that Marcus, Nathan's father, had a little more role and connectivity in this part of the story. I just wish it hadn't taken much of the dragging heels of the novel to reach that point closer to its end.

I really don't care what happens to Annalise at this point. I was only lukewarm about her character in the first book, but I ended up not caring one way or another about her by the end of this book. She's just...not a well-crafted character at all. No dimensions, just a useless character, and I hate saying that about a MC female who should mean more in the overarching conflict of the novel. What's the point of her being there other than just being a love interest for Nathan? Really, I don't understand. She serves no purpose wand it's a further source of frustration to see what happens with her character as the novel approached its conclusion.

Which brings me to the ending. Dude...if the rest of the book had managed to work that kind of tension better and throughout the novel in its entirety, maybe I'd have a much higher rating to give. But since it's so quick and sloppy with its handling, I can't give "Half Wild" that much credit. There were a few brutally violent scenes in the book, but much of them seemed more like background noise apart from the ending, which had a really heavy cost to Nathan in terms of his personal relationships and his role in the overarching conflict. Seems like Nathan's going to have a quest of vengeance and role to serve, but I hope that actually comes to fruition instead of just leading into a cop-out conclusion. I do plan on following this series to the end, but given the quality of this one, I'm not super excited about it because this book could've been much better in quality. MUCH better. And it didn't deliver, to be blunt about it.

Overall score: 2.5/5 stars.