Review: What YA Should Be
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 17, 2014
I have been haunting the virtual shelves of Amazon for months hoping this book would magically come out early. I lucked out and got to start it a few days early thanks to Netgalley. The bad news is that meant I tore through it sooner and finished it sooner. Man, I do so love Mr. Abercrombie's writing.If you're unfamiliar with the works of Joe Abercrombie you'll find that they aren't your typical fantasy offering. If there is any magic at all, it's pretty low key. I think the closest thing to magic in this particular book is that the doves, crow and eagle used as messenger birds can speak. Even then they aren't sentient beings holding a conversation, they are merely repeating words they memorized. What the stories are are very gritty, action-packed adventures. People die and die unpleasantly. Heroes and villains are tested and not every one of them succeeds. Friendships are formed out necessity and sealed with sacrifice and blood. Seldom is there a reward without some terrible cost.A few things struck me as a bit different in "Half a King" from what I've read of Mr. Abercrombie's previous stories. One, his PoV sticks with Yarvi through the entire story instead of switching around to different important characters from scene to scene. Also, the tale is confined to one group of people, those attached to Yarvi, instead of switching to battles in different parts of the world. It's a much less complex tale in that sense, requiring much less work on the part of the read to keep track of details than say one of my favorite of the author's books "The Heroes". Lastly, this book is intended to be a YA novel. That, of course, reflects the other differences I already mentioned. Yarvi is about 15-years-old, and the tale is definitely a coming of age story.That being said, this is no watered down story with pat resolutions. Yarvi grows, but at great pain and cost. Death is not pretty or off stage. Bad decisions are made and they have consequences. Some folks might balk at giving a young person a book like this, but I applaud Joe Abercrombie for not prettying things up just because his audience is younger. It took a lot of skill to write this book without compromising on content. I highly recommend it.