The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself: Now a major Netflix series

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At first I was surprised by the writing style. I didn't like it but I have to admit that we don't see it every day. At Ready Steady Cut, Jonathon Wilston described the show as “as guaranteed a hit as the platform has had in some time.” Andrew Murray at The Upcoming argued that it had “the style, personality and ideas” to “avoid becoming another casualty of cancellation, as has been the case with so many other similar shows.” I have been procrastinating writing this since I finished the book and cried instead of studying for my test which was a day after. Wow. Anyways, this was such a beautiful, beautiful book. My heart pains to see that it’s so good and yet so underrated! (pls read it lol) Annalise almost killed Jessica but could not go through with it, leaving Jessica to escape almost unscathed. Overall, kind of mixed emotions about this book. The story was pretty good, the characters were decent, but it was kind of downgraded by the writing style. This book was good but it wasn't great. However it was decent, and I would say I did enjoy it, I was interested in what was going to happen next. I liked Nathan's character, and the concept was quite interesting. There aren't really that many characters in this though, I liked Arran and Annalise also, didn't like Jessica and Kieran (he was evil) as well as Clay the hunter, and also didn't really like Celia or Mercury even. I liked Gabrielle and Rose though, oh and that Nikita girl was cute. But that's about it.

This just goes to show once again that there really is no magic formula for a hit show, no matter how much streaming platforms and writers would like there to be one. By all accounts, Half Bad did everything right, but evidently, it didn’t do the numbers to justify a second season.

As I got more in the book, the writing style changed to normal to tell the story of how we got there. However, it was slow and at some point it was really dragging. Most characters were just useless and weak. I saw some tentative plot of "Nobody is totally good or totally evil" but it was a big fail. Specially the dark witches who were bad just to have people in the dark side for the plot's sake. After this, he gave Nathan, who transpired to be a Blood Witch, his own blood so that he would not die after his birthday. Nathan had one sister that hated him, but he had a great relationship with his other sister and his brother. They loved him for him and not for his half blood. His sweet grandmother loved him too. Marcus had gained this power by ripping the heart from a witch who possessed the special ability and eating it. For me, something like "Half Bad" is very, very rare. I read a lot of fantasy, much of that lot from the contemporary masters of the field (Sanderson, Rothfuss, Williams, Rowling etc.) I have been well immersed in the fantasy genre, and as spoiled as it may sound, have come to expect greatness in the fantasy that I choose to read. I chanced across a copy of the "Half Bad" unedited manuscript at the 2013 BEA, and decided to take a chance.

Where were the tons of spells? What would school teach aside from what the minister wanted them to ___Reead___? Why the hell would witches use fists and knifes to fight? I was promised magic so WHERE IS MY FREAKING MAGIC??? This review's a little short I know, I didn't have a whole lot to say about this book, but this is basically all my thoughts about it.

I'm glad that I read Harry Potter first, because the world setting is very similar, in that magic is apparently an inherited trait, delivered by blood on a Witch's 17th birthday. PS I also happened to like Marcus, he was quite fascinating, and I wish we got to learn more about him personally in this book. Gabriel had tried to get the blood from Mercury, but the vile was broken after he was shot in the chest.

The ending to this was okay, and I was pleased that Nathan did finally get something that he wanted. I can’t believe that his life is going to be much better from now on though. You will have a powerful Gift — we can all see that — but it’s how you use it that will show you to be good or bad." This book was written a little oddly though, the writing style was quite unusual, and while I appreciated the fast pace, we hit a bit at around the 60% mark which was just boring and felt like it would never end! He doesn't reply, so I throw my jeans on the floor, get on my knees and say, "Can I have permission to go to the bathroom? Please?"If Netflix gets a reputation for canceling promising shows before the story is complete, then breakout hits are going to be harder and harder to come by. And that’s an outcome that’s bad for everybody. But, as I'm sure you know by now, I wouldn't be at peace with myself if I didn't at least try to explain why. But then again, in saying this, I do kind of want to see what happens. I don't know I'm really unsure. I may try and read the next books at some point, but I don't really want to have to pay for them. I won't be going really out of my way to get the next books, but I do kinda want to give them a try. I am kind of interested to see what happens next, but then, I didn't find this book supremely engaging. I don't know... Real mixed emotions... I loved everything, and it’s been a WHILE since I had absolutely no complaints in a book. The thing is, I want to read the next books ASAP but I’m not getting money until May 1. THEN there are 999999 book releases in May which I want to buy and basically WHAT THE HELL DO I DO?????