Hello Fellow Journeyers,
After a much needed hiatus on vacation with my kids and family, I came back at it with a very popular author in Joe Abercrombie, with his YA novel, Half a King. While Half a King was my first Abercrombie novel, I've heard much of Joe Abercrombie in the last few years as being a staple in fantasy as a whole and primarily grimdark fantasy. Let's get to it.
What's the story about: Half a King is the journey of a young naïve prince who reluctantly becomes king when he least expects or wants the throne. His rise to power is not what he expects and he has to go through much difficulty to get what he is owed.
After seeing Joe Ambercrombie's name all over Goodreads and wanting a good Viking-style story that I could wrap my head around, I thought Half a King would be a good place to continue my journey for finding the best books. I was sorely underwhelmed and unimpressed. Half a King seemed like half a story to me in many ways because there was just so much lacking that I had a hard time wanting to even finish. There were twists, turns, and unexpected events, but none of them hit very impactfully.
To begin with, the story moves fast but without much actually going on for the first 40-50% of the time. As the chapters are short, nothing takes incredibly long to move along, but this left all character and story progression to feel overly quick and more than a little forced. Right in the middle of the 35% mark, I thought to myself, "What is Yarvi actually trying to do in the long run?" His motivations were...simple, which isn't a problem innately, but I was left wondering when some depth would come. I kept wanting to get behind him as the story went on, but rarely did he have any moments where I could actually connect with him as a character. He's not a bad character, just underdeveloped and sorely unutilized for being the main character.
Next, the dialogue is just so hard to read. Not in the sense of corny self-published work, but it reads too choppy perhaps? While the descriptions and internal monologuing of Yarvi's is the strongest writing in the book, it doesn't make up for the spoken words that just fall so flat. It reminded me of Pierce Brown's writing style, but it seemed like everything was written too simply, too open, with no nuance, a lot like The Boneless Mercies and Seven Endless Forests. You may be asking yourself, "Well, it sounds like you just don't like YA books." And for the most part I would probably have to agree, but come on, The Hunger Games didn't seem to have these issues, but to be honest I can't think of another series that is strickly YA that I did like... Either way, the dialogue was rough and never seemed to improve.
Lastly, the characters were just not likable? I had a conversation with a fellow Goodreads reader who said that Joe Abercrombie tends to write characters that are morally gray, but that didn't seem to be the problem in Half a King like it may be in his other books. I just found them lacking any intrigue. Sumael was blah, Rulf was typical, Nothing was surprisingly funny, but annoyingly predictable, Jaud was just simple, and Ankran showed promise but ultimately didn't live up to anything. I wanted to like the characters, but none of the them seemed to have very good motivations and thus, deaths didn't result in any emotional impact.
★★★ 2.5 Stars - Half a King should have been good; I should have liked it, but neither of those things were the case. While the ending had me interested more than the rest of the book, the first Half of the book didn't give enough to warrant Half a story. And also didn't develop the characters in a satisfying way at all. For having a lot of good ingredients here to make a good story, the execution was poor and underwhelming. That all being said, Half a star must be granted for an ending that seemingly surprised and was original.
Recommended For: single POV readers. Fantasy YA readers who want a Viking-inspired, but mostly normalized medeival setting.
Let me hear from you! If you like what you read, want to hear more thoughts on this book, other reviews, or talk book recommendations and Essential Reading, leave a comment below.
Rating system:
★★★★★ 5 Stars: It was amazing; I loved it. Read this book; it is definitely Essential Reading!
★★★★★* 4.5 Stars: It was nearly perfect. I really loved almost every aspect of it, but a few things kept it from being amazing.
★★★★ 4 Stars: It was very worth reading and satisfying; highly recommend.
★★★★* 3.5 Stars: I thoroughly enjoyed this story, but it was lacking in certain crucial areas.
★★★ 3 Stars: It was good, but could've been better or improved upon significantly.
★★★* 2.5 Stars: I wanted to enjoy it. Certain aspects were good, it was worth finishing, but many issues.
★★ 2 Stars: It was okay, I didn't feel strongly about it.
★ 1 Star: I did not like it. It was not worth finishing or I did not finish it.
*I round up based on the system on Goodreads. Also, there is no 1.5 Stars because it does not seem to have enough differentiation.
