I read this aloud to my 15-year old son. We both agreed to give it four stars. The story was engaging, revolving around a feud between white and black (oops, they should be White and Black!) witches. Except the main guy, Nathan, is half of each, since his mother was a White witch and his father happens to be the most notorious and possibly most feared Black witch around. 
 In Half Bad we follow Nathan through his journey of trying to learn about himself, and what sort of witch he might become. There are many that wish Nathan ill, though he is close to a few family members, and meets an ally (and later, friend) Gabriel. There are many character, and I enjoyed them all. 
 The pacing was a bit slow; it did take us a very long time to get through the book. My son didn't roll his eyes too much at the romantic bits. We're onto the next book in this series!