Joe Abercrombie is a name I've heard a lot, usually lumped together with some of my favorite fantasy authors, so I always figured I'd start reading his work sooner or later. Now that I've started, it's hard not to wish it had been sooner. 
 Of course, the funny thing about that is that Half a King is--apparently--YA, rather than the full-on adult grim-and-gritty that Abercrombie is known for (which I also expect to love, perhaps even more than this, given my tastes). But hey, let's say a word or two about what "YA" means in this context, because I don't know that I would have identified this as YA if someone hadn't told me so. If having a young protagonist makes this YA, well, it's got that in Yarvi, the titular half-a-king. There's no sex, so I suppose that's a YA element. But it can be pretty gory and pretty grim as we traverse a world of slavery and hack-and-slash warfare, and the realities of this world are by no means ignored or glossed over. It's a brutal world, though Abercrombie's style here frequently infuses it with humor, wit, and charm. It's masterful, the way he fuses a light touch with darkness and complexity, and it drew me right in. 
 So what's this all about? Yarvi is a prince born with a crippled left hand who is destined to give up all claim to the throne and become a Minister in service to the kingdom. Right up until his father and older brother are murdered. So Yarvi becomes king. 
 Only the occasional hiss passed between Yarvi and his mother. "Sit up. You are a king. Do not apologize. You are a king. Straighten your cloak-buckle. You are a king. You are a king. You are a king." As if she was trying to convince him, and herself, and the world of it against all the evidence. 
 Surely the Shattered Sea hadnever seen so cunning a merchant, but he doubted even she could sell this. 
 I hate to give away too much plot, but I don't think I'll ruin anything if I tell you that it's pretty much all downhill from there. Yarvi, who has a cleverness worthy of a great king, seems to face ever-worse circumstances that his cunning only more-or-less gets him out of, always with unintended consequences that usually lead to the next iteration of worsen circumstances. 
 The characters are a strength of this novel, starting with Yarvi, whose consciousness filters the whole story. I wouldn't say that the characters are all deeply drawn, but Abercrombie has a way with sketching out depth of character with easy strokes: we get to see the layers without needing to peel them all back and pin them for dissection. As one of the characters notes late in the novel, "If life has taught me one thing, it's that there are no villains. Only people, doing their best." Which pretty much sums up Abercrombie's approach to characterization. 
 It's a quick read, not only because of its length but also its breakneck yet effortless pacing. So you know, go read it. In the time it took you to plod through my review, you could probably have been halfway through.