Half Bad by Sally Green

Half Bad by Sally Green

PUBLISHER SUMMARY: Coming of age in a modern England where good and bad witches live among humans, the son of a powerful black witch father and a dead white witch mother struggles to escape a violent incarceration and claim three magical gifts in order to survive. A first novel

Book #2 - "Half Wild" published March 24, 2015

REVIEW: This book wasn’t half bad!! Ok, sorry for the cheesy response but its true, I thought it was pretty good story.

There are parts that seemed to fall into the “kinda close to other famous plotlines” category. For example, “Half Bad’s” setting occurs in present time England but, similar to Harry Potter, there is another subculture of white witches and black witches. Nathan’s parentage comes from a white witch mother (who is dead) but the most infamous of black witches for a father (who is absent). Nathan’s life has never been easy because of his father’s notoriety; there’s the fact that he is the spitting image of his father, and then there is the prophecy…   in it Nathan is destined to kill his father. Nathan, although he has never met his father, has no desire to kill his father or anyone for that matter. 

Almost all of this book is taken up with Nathan’s journey from “whet” or young witch-to-be up to his seventeenth birthday when he will be given three gifts and drink the blood of an ancestor to gain his “Gift” and a witch designation. Let's just say that it is a hard journey with most against him and only a few in his corner. 

 On the negative side: the characters weren’t as well developed as I’d like and one book seemed to be completely about the “set-up” for the real action in book two: “Half Wild” I’m willing to overlook both of those issues though. I liked Nathan’s attitude and thought process through the story. I could relate to his struggle to be accepted and his need to not be judged by the actions of his father; he just wanted to be free to live his life.

 This was an interesting and engaging story that will appeal to all those upper middle school to high school students looking for the next, “magic” series.

Review: The Dark Between

The Dark Between
by Sonia Gensler

Book Description: 

At the turn of the twentieth century, Spiritualism and séances are all the rage—even in the scholarly town of Cambridge, England. While mediums dupe the grief-stricken, a group of local fringe scientists seeks to bridge the gap to the spirit world by investigating the dark corners of the human mind.

Each running from a shadowed past, Kate, Asher, and Elsie take refuge within the walls of Summerfield College. But their peace is soon shattered by the discovery of a dead body nearby. Is this the work of a flesh-and-blood villain, or is something otherworldly at play? This unlikely trio must illuminate what the scientists have not, and open a window to secrets taken to the grave—or risk joining the spirit world themselves.

Review:
I loved the atmosphere of this book. Set in the early 1900's in England, spiritualism is all the rage. Combined with the development of early sciences, the three teens find themselves caught in a mystery that finds at its heart the question...are there really ghosts or is everything just an illusion of the otherworld? The pseudo-sciences explored were fascinating and the way that Gensler ties everything together totally sucked me in to the story.

While I had my suspicions about who was really involved with what and why, I found myself absolutely captivated watching the characters figure it all out. A great supernatural mystery for historical fans.

Review: Where I Belong

Where I Belong

by Gillian Cross

Book Description:

In the hot desert of Somalia, Mahmoud is kidnapped and held for a ten thousand-dollar ransom. His older sister, Khadija, is in London, thousands of miles away; and yet Mahmoud s life is in her hands. Someone has discovered her identity, that she is Qarsoon the Hidden One the face of famous fashion designer Sandy Dexter s newest collection. Who can Khadija trust to help her? She now must appear as planned on the Fashion Week runway. Only then can she possibly earn the money to save Mahmoud s life. Also involved is Abdi, a fourteen-year-old boy coming to terms with the mysterious disappearance of his father, and Freya, the totally unfashionable daughter of Sandy Dexter, trying to find her place in her mother s world of haute couture.

Review:

I thought that this was an interesting way to learn a lot about Somalian culture.  I hadn't really known anything about it before.  Khadija, Abdi, and Freya each brought a totally different viewpoint to the story and it was intriguing to read how they interacted with each other and the adults around them. I had trouble sometimes keeping track of who was the narrator of the different chapters, though. 

There was a lot of exciting stuff in this book and it had short, easy to read chapters.  While I thought the storyline was really interesting, it didn't completely capture my interest. I'm glad I read it, but it's not my favorite new book.

Review: Raven Summer

Raven Summer
by David Almond

Book description:
Liam and his friend Max are playing in their neighborhood when the call of a bird leads them out into a field beyond their town. There, they find a baby lying alone atop a pile of stones—with a note pinned to her clothing. Mystified, Liam brings the baby home to his parents. They agree to take her in, but police searches turn up no sign of the baby’s parents. Finally they must surrender the baby to a foster family, who name her Allison.

Visiting her in Northumberland, Liam meets Oliver, a foster son from Liberia who claims to be a refugee from the war there, and Crystal, a foster daughter. When Liam’s parents decide to adopt Allison, Crystal and Oliver are invited to her christening. There, Oliver tells Liam about how he will be slaughtered if he is sent back to Liberia. The next time Liam sees Crystal, it is when she and Oliver have run away from their foster homes, desperate to keep Oliver from being sent back to Liberia. In a cave where the two are hiding, Liam learns the truth behind Oliver’s dark past—and is forced to ponder what all children are capable of.

Review:
I had a really hard time with this book. It's short and easy to read, so it wasn't that I couldn't understand it, really...it was that I had no connection with the characters. I would latch on to one piece of the plot and then the author would switch focus to a totally different aspect of what was going on...it was disjointed and I just couldn't make heads or tails of the real point of the book.

It was not the right book for me.