Book Review | Half a King (Half a King #1) by Joe Abercrombie

I really wanted to pick a Joe Abercrombie book this year, but was not ready for his 'First Law Series' and the commitment it would have brought with so many books after the original trilogy. So, I started with his YA one and read 'Half a king' - It was wonderful! I was completely hooked from start to finish and completely flew through the whole book!

PREMISE

Born with a bad hand and soft heart, Prince Yarvi is considered as a weakling in the eyes of his people. He wants no part of all the politics and bloody war in his life and plans of joining ministry and serve his country that way. 

But of course nothing goes as planned,he finds himself with the throne after the unexpected death of his father. With the throne he gets the biggest betrayal of his life and we see how it changes his entire world and gets him in the slavery and in the bitter waters of the Shattered Sea.

Will he be able to take his revenge and reclaim his lost throne and power from someone once very dear to him? That is the rest of the story!

MY THOUGHTS

This book has so many tropes I like in my fantasy -  'Coming of Age', 'Underdog', reluctant ownership of throne', 'Friends becoming Family' and best of all 'Revenge' trope! Joe Abercrombie pulls each of them masterfully and with a lot of heart in it. Creating awesome and morally gray characters whom we cannot help but fall in love, is I think one of his best strength! 

Loved Yarvi as our main character, he starts out as a soft hearted naive boy with a sharp mind, but as he goes through so many hardships and meets new people, he gains a new strength,shrewdness and confidence in himself which was just awesome to see! I was so rooting for him on every step. I also loved all the people he met and friends he made along the way. They were some very shady people with questionable morals, but fun and interesting to read! The hardship and camaraderie Yarvi shared with his unexpected set of friends was my favourite part of this whole book!

It was also very adventurous and sometimes very bleak and little bit dark for a YA book, but it was not 'hard- to -digest dark' or borderline 'grimdark' ( even though I will love that too!) to read. I loved the travelling part and the high stakes at every steps also made it a very thrilling read for me. 

I loved Abercrombie's writing style, it was quite direct but not simple, little flourished but not flowery and it made the whole reading experience more engaging for me!

OVERALL RATING - 4.5 Stars!