Luceat Lux Vestra

Release Date: March 4th, 2014 from Viking Juvenile

Series: Half Life #1

Summary from cover:

"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 warning 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."

Hey guys! I'm back with another review today. I can have one of my 2015 goals crossed off after reading Half Bad; it was written by someone who isn't native to my country. This is exciting news because Sally Green will be forever known as my first English author I have read on my own that was required for school.  Anyway, let's get to the review.

This book had it's problems just like other first-time-debuts I have read. I was feeling very generous with my rating for this book considering that it's the beginning of the year and I wanted to give Sally Green a chance with this one. I always have sympathy for first time writers. 

I will begin with the things that I did like about this book. The fact that it tackled differences between social classes really intrigued me. Normally, I don't read about that subject with YA books and it was refreshing to see something new. When the heartbreaking events happened to Nathan (just because he is a Half Code) happened, I seriously wanted to cry because of how intensely written it was. During those scenes, Green's writing style really shined through. On another note, the relationship she built between Nathan and Arran was really beautiful was well. I could really sense how sincere the two brothers were with one another despite the fact that they had different fathers from different factions.

Despite those two aspects, the book really fell apart for me. The world building just wasn't there. When I was reading through the scenes where the world was described, I felt that I was supposed to already know about this world. The differences between the witches that lived among fains and those who didn't weren't described other than the fact that "hey, one likes living among the mundane and others despise it". I didn't like that at all because since this is a new world that I was experiencing, I wanted to learn about it while reading. 

The story felt rushed and the characters were not believable in the slightest. One moment one thing was happening and then, to me, it felt that it turned a complete 360 and then something happened that I didn't expect. This wasn't the good kind of unexpected event because it wasn't portrayed in a way that felt cohesive. In my opinion, Green bit off more than she could chew with this type of story line,

I most likely won't read the sequel to this, but I really want to see if her writing and story improve. I might read the reviews before purchasing just in case because I really don't know if it would be worth reading.