A story of vengeance, resilience, and a quest to return home, Joe Abercrombie’s Half A King is an intense epic adventure that adapts his signature storytelling for younger readership. Set in wild and dangerous lands that surround the foreboding namesake Shattered Sea, this book contains a straightforward and tense adventure of a young man realizing the twisted figures around him as he journeys to right the wrongs of betrayal. With a solid plot, Abercrombie’s dynamic storytelling, and great writing, this book is a quick and respectable read well-suited for its target readership. Though possessing good crossover appeal for adult readers, its fast pacing, limited worldbuilding, and occasionally muddy contextual scope also prevent the story from fully reaching its potential. (On Goodreads, 3.5-star rating rounded down). The first book in the Shattered Sea trilogy, Half A King follows the young Prince Yarvi who is suddenly thrown off course from his aspirations to join the Ministry following an unexpected death in the family. An intellectual individual who also has a physical disability with a deformed hand, he thinks of himself as only half a prince both physically and in influence. Falling from grace and lost far from his home of Vulgard on…
