I'm disappointed because I've heard many good things about Joe Abercrombie but I guess I picked the wrong book. It's just not my kind of thing. I was going to give the book 2 stars but a little twist in the end convinced me that it deserves 3. 
 It's not a bad book. The first half of the book and especially scenes on the ship were boring but then it picked up the pace. The story was interesting but there were to many coincidences and too much luck involved to make it really enjoyable read for me. It didn't feel very realistic. 
 And the second reason why I didn't really enjoy the book was lack of interesting, deep characters. We have a group of people that travel together and I didn't really care enough for anyone of them. The book is centered on Yarvi, the king's youngest song with crippled hand. He is supposed to be a king after his brother and father were killed but things don't turn out well for him and he finds himself in a very dangerous situation. He is flawed, crippled but likeable character that I should like. Well no, I don't like him at all. Some of his worst actions and his practical way of thinking really got on my nerves and I didn't care for him. I love realistic characters with flaws (like Fitz from Robin Hobb's books) and Yarvi is well written character but still he's not the kind of protagonist I can really care about. And he has too much luck. He should be killed at least few times but of course he survives. 
 Because the story is centered on Yarvi the other characters seem to fade into the background in my opinion. I couldn't really connect to them. The most interesting character in my eyes is Nothing and he saves the book. 
 I'm in no hurry to read the second book in the series. Half a King is a solid book but no more than that. Nothing really intriguing or interesting, certainly not the story and characters. But I will try some other Joe Abercrombie's work in the future.