Half Bad
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Narrated by:
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Carl Prekopp
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By:
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Sally Green
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
In a world divided between good and evil, what happens when you're both?
Nathan Byrn is the illegitimate son of the world's most dangerous witch.
Kept in a cage by the Council of Fairborn witches, who believe he is destined to follow the same destructive path as his father, Nathan must find a way to unlock his full powers before his seventeenth birthday, or face madness and death.
His one hope lies with the sinister Blood witch Mercury. But Mercury's help always comes at a price - one Nathan may not be able to pay . . .
Now a major new Netflix series entitled The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself.
'Highly entertaining and dangerously addictive' - TIME
© 2013 Sally Green (P) 2014 Penguin Audio
This is set in present day UK, but a present day UK that has witches. It’s told entirely in Nathan’s voice, so there are no explanations other than what he can glean, or other’s perspectives.
It’s fairly standard YA territory - child/teenager, different from everyone else, badly treated by his society, bullied at school and subjected to some graphically nasty abuse. He’s told his (wicked, bad, black witch) father murdered his (good, decent white witch) mother; his eldest sister subjects him to endless mental bullying; and once he’s away from his (nice but powerless) gran, achingly sweet brother and other (ok) sister, he’s totally alone in a very hostile world. The description on Audible might lead you to think this is suitable for younger YA’s, but I wouldn’t commend it. There are a couple of torture scenes that aren’t nice listening.
As a boy/young teen he’s hit, kicked, badly carved up with a knife and constantly belittled by his older sister; as a mid-teen he’s kept in a cage, beaten and kicked by people far bigger than him without a chance of fighting back. He’s tied down and tortured (graphically and horribly) by “the authorities. It's all a bit relentless!
After about 5 hours of listening I was beginning to wonder why I was still listening, given the never-ending awfulness of Nathan’s lot. If I’d had the book, I’d have skipped to the end. However, things do improve in the second half, and I stuck with it to find out what was going to happen. It was only about an hour from the end that I discovered there was a part 2, so realised I was possibly heading for one of those awful cliffhanger endings… It isn’t - the end is just the end of a chapter. -there's no break in the story to indicate the end.
I’m not sure if this is meant to be allegorical - he’s a half black witch, loathed and treated like a sub-species by the pure white witches. He has dark hair and black eyes, they have light haired and pale eyes - so is this actually about race? White witches are nice (!) black witches aren’t? If allegory it is, it’s a bit clumsy.
Really brilliantly read, for all its horrors, with every character clearly voiced and accented. The young hero is particularly well read as he ages from young boy to 17.
Not bad, but there’s some pretty graphic violence
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What made the experience of listening to Half Bad the most enjoyable?
The performance and voice acting was excellent, and really transported the story to its various settings.What other book might you compare Half Bad to, and why?
This is ultimately a coming of age story, so would compare to other books with that in mind. The addition of magic and witches makes the story all the more interesting.Which character – as performed by Carl Prekopp – was your favourite?
Mary, the elderly witch, was an excellent performance.Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Definitely - and in fact I did listen to the whole thing in one go.An intriguing start to a trilogy
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Half Bad
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Intriguing from the start!
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Wowee
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