Half Bad by Sally Green - OPTIONAL

Green, Sally  Half Bad (Half Bad, #1), 394 pgs.  Viking, 2014.  $18.99  Content: Language: PG-13 (20 swears); Mature Content: PG-13; Violence: R (torture-lots of it).   

Nathan is being raised by his white witch grandmother with his white witch half-siblings, but he is half white and half black, and his father killed his siblings’ white witch father.  The white witch community keeps waiting for Nathan’s black witch side to show, but Nathan loves most of his family and tries to be good.  Nathan wishes he knew his father.  The government of white witches keeps Nathan on a short leash and regardless of his grandmother and brother and sister’s love Nathan ends up under the government’s watchful eye.  

I couldn’t put this book down.  The world of witches is creative and Nathan struggles to be his own person regardless of the label put on him.  The minor characters are well developed and the storyline moves along quickly.  My biggest complaint is the torture—Nathan can heal himself, but he is tortured on more than one occasion and in detail and it made me squirm, moving this from advisable to optional.  Other than the violence, it was a great read.   

HS-OPTIONAL   Reviewer, C. Peterson.