"Half Wild" | Book Review

****Will contain spoilers****

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I have to admit, going into Half Wild by Sally Green, I wasn't too enthusiastic about the book. I didn't dislike Half Bad, but I absolutely thought that there were things that could be improved. For example, I was infinitely more interested in Marcus than any of the other characters, so not seeing him except for the one scene made me crazy. It was like I was constantly waiting for a thinking about something that never happened.

That was, in my opinion, one of the reasons that Half Wild was so much better. Marcus' presence in this book, though not immediate, was a fantastic addition that livened up the plot, the character dynamic, and brought out the true colors in a lot of people, and I loved it. I loved the way people's alliances shifted, and the way that the Alliance began turning on Nathan in slight ways, just because he was being shaped by Marcus. And I loved the Marcus wasn't evil, but still wasn't painted as the good guy. I can't stand when authors write a character who has an evil reputation then turns out to be a softy. It's unrealistic; it's trite. That's why I was so glad that we did get some genuine, soft, loving moments between Marcus and Nathan, but we also saw that he wasn't the "good guy" by any means. He didn't show remorse for killing all the people that he did, and a lot of times he was entirely indifferent at the idea of how many lives he'd taken, and I needed that in a book.

Sometimes people aren't good people, and that's fine. It's refreshing to have a main character who has soft spots, but is overall the bad person they were made out to be.

I think the complexity of his character alone, and how his presence made absolute ripples in the plots and character developments is one of the main reasons that I found this book as good as I did. When I found myself asking questions about what it truly means to be a good person, and reflecting on conceit and on survival, I realized that was another reason I loved Marcus' presence in this book. He made me think. He wasn't one dimensional. He had a purpose larger than killing people, and that's important.

Now, all my gushing for how well Marcus was written aside, I generally liked all the characters better in this book than I did in the last one. Gabriel, who was always one of my favorites, didn't lose all the qualities that made me love him; his loyalty, his stupid jokes; his willingness to risk himself for others. These were all things that I really enjoyed, and I'm glad he kept them. I'm glad those qualities weren't entirely unwavering (as, in a war, they wouldn't be) but another thing I hate when authors do, is when they turn a character into a complete brick because of the circumstances, and that's not entirely realistic. I love that Green was able to keep him true to himself, while still developing as a person.

But, what really helped the characters in this book, were the new characters. Nesbitt and Van and Celia coming back were all hugely important for me enjoying the people we spent Half Wild with. In the last book, I found Rose boring, I found Mercury stereotypical, and Annalise got on my nerves like no one's business (more on Annalise later). So, when we had this new group of characters, who were more realistic, who were more enjoyable, I was pleased to find it really helped the experience.

Nathan and Nesbitt's banter was fantastic, and I loved how these new people helped not only the plot, but also Nathan develop.

Now, speaking of plot, I will say I was more impressed than the last book. In Half Bad, I felt like every time the plot built up to something, it happened as I expected, or it went as most books would. It wasn't a bad plot, it just wasn't incredible. In Half Wild, I still don't think it reached anything incredible, but I will say: I loved the development of the alliance, and I found Nathan killing Marcus genuinely surprising.

I feel like Marcus getting hit by that bullet seemed too easy, and Nathan has gotten hit by bullets and successfully and safely had them removed multiple times, so I do feel like him "already dying" was a bit of a cop out. BUT I truly didn't think that Nathan would kill his father, and NEVER did I think he would eat his heart.

That was the main point where I was honestly shocked at where the plot went, and also deeply saddened at Marcus' death.

The reason I only say the plot was better, is I still didn't feel like there were enough moments like this, but that one really stood out and made the book feel incredibly worthwhile.

In terms of style, I still think that Half Wild could have been a bit better. The prose was more enjoyable and less robotic at times than Half Bad, but I still wish Green would take more chances with her descriptions and her stage directions and her syntax. She's a good writer, but she hasn't shown anything great. She does a lot of telling, and she uses average descriptions to create her scenes and her stories. One of the only exceptions to this was the scene where Gabriel and Nathan went into that trance. That scene felt so raw, and so real, and I appreciated the prose she gave there.

But, unfortunately, it's wasn't as persistent as I hoped. That is the main thing that I'm hoping she can improve upon in the final book in the trilogy.

Lastly, I want to talk about Annalise. This is the one part of the book I cannot stand whatsoever. My problem with Green's prose aside, Annalise is the reason I would give this book a 4 or 3.5 out of 5 stars. Annalise is one of my least favorite characters I've ever read. She doesn't fit in with anyone in the book, all she does is create problems, she doesn't seem to have any greater purpose other than to serve as a love interest, and I don't buy her and Nathan's relationship for one second.

It doesn't make any sense. There is no reason for her and Nathan to be close or in love. They barely know anything about each other, and all Nathan dreams of is "holding her in his arms." Every time she walks on the page, I roll my eyes. Their relationship seems fabricated and forced, yet Green really wants us to believe that Nathan has nothing with Gabriel and truly loves Annalise. There's not one moment in this book—not when they have sex, not when Nathan rescues her, not when they have a conversation, and not when he fought so hard to keep Annalise from believing he's "bad"—when I truly believed that their relationship was real and that there was anything between them.

Once Annalise started protecting her brother and she shot Marcus, I was beyond glad that she was gone and Nathan finally hated her. My favorite part of the book was the ending, when he wanted to hunt her down, because honestly, if she was in these books for one more page I think I would have lost it.

Overall, Half Wild was more impressive to me than Half Bad, but still has a ways to go with prose, and I just couldn't stand Annalise.

This puts my ratings at:
Characters: 90%
Plot: 87%
Depth: 90%
Style: 70%
Intrigue: 93%
Overall Rating: 86%

The Importance of Setting

This is a writing post I've been excited to write for a while. As I'm sure you can tell from the title, this will talk about the importance of setting to a story.

Now, setting is one of those things that I think makes or breaks a story. Everything about your story is grounded in setting; the place where your story is happening will be integral to how it plays out.

If it's happening in a remote town high up in the mountains, what your protagonist will think to do, and the various resources available to them will be incredibly different from how your protagonist would act if it was taking place in a bustling city.

If you're writing a fight scene in the middle of a forest, the destruction would be mostly to the environment, and your characters would likely fight more recklessly because no one other than themselves would get hurt. But, if it were on a city street, there would be prying eyes and the possibility of others getting hurt, so the character's may be more careful, and in both cases the fight will play out drastically different.

Get the idea?

Now, to break this down in the simplest terms, I'm going to split setting and how it helps a story into three categories: Place, time, and mood.

Place
This is going to be the most straightforward out of the three. This is the conventional and obvious purpose of setting in a story—it establishes place. It makes quite clear where your story is happening, and gives a foundation for the rest of the novel to play out. The "place" part of setting is the specific and definite location of a story.

This can be on both small and large levels—anything from a city, to a small town, to a mountain, to a specific country, to a specific school, or a spot in a park.

Now, as simple as it seems, there are often components of this that you'll have to be careful of. For example, weather. In picking a place, weather is a key part of this. If it's somewhere real, you'll want to make sure the weather presented is accurate. If your place is fictional, then you'll want to establish clear weather patterns, both for yourself and the reader, as this creates a sense of realism, and gives you a chance to incorporate the setting further into a story (if it's storming, then that is one more thing the character will have to deal with).

This leads me to my next point in implementing the place aspect of setting; it has to feel real. If your setting does not feel real, or include enough details that are familiar to the modern reader, they will likely feel lost or distant from your world. This almost always turns readers off, so you must be quite careful in determining the defining details of the setting.

In addition, if you're not intimately familiar with the place that you're writing about, and it is a real place, changing the name of it in case you are inaccurate is likely a good decision, because it will stop readers who are intimately familiar with that place from comparing, judging, or stopping your novel because of those inaccuracies.

Time
Time is also fairly straightforward in and of itself, though not always directly grouped in setting. Essentially, the time that your story takes place in provides a backdrop to the story.

Just like place, time includes the era or century your story is taking place in (again, if you're writing fantasy with a different way of measuring time, that should be established very clearly), AND it includes the season, day, or week.

You shouldn't be giving time explicitly unless there is reason to (if it's epistolary, dates on journal entries or newspaper articles are perfectly valid, or if there's a date included in an event title (War of 1812)). Instead, time should be established through little details that keep the reader oriented. This is through things such as weather, the sun's position in the sky, architecture, technology, etc.

Time likely won't feel immediately important to the story, but it will help with realism, and also add a layer to the story that would have otherwise been missing.

Mood
Mood in terms of setting is likely the only one of these that maybe isn't perfectly intuitive. Setting really should be an aid in creating mood to the story, and this is a use of setting that will make your writing feel not only layered, but also feel advanced.

Establishing mood through setting is something that will enhance the emotional landscape of the piece, and is often conveyed strongest through changes in setting. If the weather goes from sunny to rainy, this is a classic example of changing the mood of the story through setting. Every detail of the setting will contribute to the mood, and if done right, should be coherent and beneficial.

While mood can be conveyed from changes in setting—and this works great on a large scale for the large events and large shifts in your story—you can't have an ever-changing setting to fit the mood you want in that scene. So in addition to changes, you can also create mood in the diction used to describe the setting. If a sunny day is described in a bland or dull way, it will show that the character is feeling fazed and out of it.

In conjunction with diction, if you juxtapose your character or set your character against your setting, that will also create mood very well through the use of setting. If it's frigid outside, and you make your character either have to fight against that frigidness, or if you compare their emotions to the frigidness, that will create mood.

For mood in particular, the best way to learn to establish it through setting is to practice. There isn't a trick, or a certain word that you can use to do it, but the more you begin to do it, the better it will get, and the more it will help your story.

Now, there are many other benefits of setting, and tons of other cool ways to use setting in your story, but now that you understand the main three ways (in my opinion) that setting should be used, I want to talk about picking a setting.

The best way that I think you can decide on a setting if it didn't come to you in your original story idea, is to map out the plot and the characters, and then think about where your characters are best fit to live, and where your plot is best fit to play out. It will most of the time be multiple places, but if you can pin down a few places that are perfect in aiding to play out your plot or develop your characters, that is how you should do it. A really good way of finding those places that work is simply scrolling through pictures of around the world, and seeing if one really speaks to your story.

Like I said, many times the setting just comes with the story idea, and if it did, then you can go right ahead and work on implementing setting into the story, but if you didn't have a setting decided on, I'd recommend waiting until after you've got the bones of your story and putting a setting that is complementary to (or, if you want your setting to function almost as an antagonist in the story, contrary to) those things.

I figured I'd end this one with 20 pictures that always inspire me for different kinds of settings, because for me, finding a setting is always best done with pictures.

So...