Abandoned by Booklikes

I often times try to use a sentence or something that a character says from a book as the title in my reviews on Booklikes. This sentence said/written by the character of Michele stuck with me until the very end. Why is the world not better than this indeed.

This book was only 72 pages and I had so many feels while reading. Told in a diary format style, the narrator is Gabriel's little sister. Readers were introduced to Gabriel in Half Bad (The Half Bad Trilogy Book 1). I would suggest that readers may want to start with this book since all events contained in Half Lies, happens before the events in Half Bad. I would just start off saying, this book will break your heart. In fact, I got to the last couple of entries in the diary and I just shook my head since even if I hadn't read the previous book, I could feel such a dark sense of foreboding while reading.

Michele is 16 and is resentful of having her life turned upside down. She and her whole family are black witches that have relocated to Florida. Michele is torn between wanting her father to be a better father, and also blaming him for the events that led to her mother's death. She hero worships her brother Gabriel and worries over him and his interactions with other black witches that they meet in Florida. We get to see Michele develop a crush and ultimately fall in love with a barista she meets named Sam.

This book gave me more insight into the character of Gabriel, which I really did enjoy, and we get to see another community of witches in America which seems to have different rules in place than the rules that govern the witches in England.

The setting of Florida I thought worked well and it was nice to move the action from Europe. It would be interesting to hear about what happened to this community of witches after the events of this book. I can say that I am starting to despise the Black and White witches both equally. And now I don't like the half Witches either.

I think that telling stories in a diary format can work sometimes, though most times you feel like you are missing a great portion of things since you are only hearing from one narrator while reading. I think it was cute that Michele's diary also had comments from Gabriel since he was totally snooping on his sister. I have to give Sally Green kudos since this diary entry format really worked and did make me think that I was reading a 16 year old girl's thoughts and feeling about her family and Sam.

The flow of the story worked well and everything transitioned smoothly. The ending broke my heart as I was reading and I wished for a total re-do since I was so mad at the ending.

Even though I gave this book five stars, and added it to my I love you, I know shelf on Booklikes, and to my favorites on Goodreads, I did still have some minor issues with the book. Readers still really don't get an idea why the White, Black, and Half witches don't all get along. I seriously hope book two gets into more detail. The world building that Ms. Green did in book one did not go far enough for me, and I hope that book two actually adds into what started this divide. If I can't get my mind around why Black, White, and Half Witches are running around trying to kill one another soon it's going to make me lose my enjoyment of this series. Just having things happen because that is always the way really doesn't satisfy me.

If I wasn't so busy all weekend I totally would have started Half Wild (The Half Bad Trilogy Book Two), however, I just didn't have the time to even peek at it.