An interesting foray for Abercrombie into the genre of young adult fantasy.

Half a King is the story of Yarvi, the crippled son of a Northern king who has very big shoes to fill. Yarvi is the forgotten and neglected second son of the king of the Gettlanders, often at war with their neighbors, the Vanstermen. Yarvi's hand is twisted and unusable and in a society that above all values a man's ability to hold a shield and sword and stand with his shield brothers, this makes him an outcast. But Yarvi is clever, intelligent and destined for the valued position as Minister, advisor to kings. However, things do not go according to plan. When his father and older brother die in a doomed attempt to broker peace between the Gettlanders and the Vanstermen, Yarvi is unexpectedly made king. If you were worried that Abercrombie might lighten up because he's writing for teens this time, worry no more. Things go as horribly wrong for Yarvi as they do for any Abercrombie hero and Yarvi is forced to use his wits and the strengths of his friends to survive and get his revenge.

One of the biggest strengths of Abercrombie's stories is the characters and Half a King is no different. Yarvi is a very sympathetic, intelligent character that you can't help but cheer for. And his band of companions and friends are no less interesting. Nothing, in particular, is a bloodthirsty bastard and an incredibly talented swordsman who has clearly been through hell and back. Sumael is an intelligent, tough navigator (yay for strong female fantasy characters!) without whom none of the others would have survived to the end. Jaud, a former baker and good friend to Yarvi, will make your heart melt. And Rulf and Ankar round out the gang and are refreshingly complex and nuanced characters that you might not like right away but slowly grow on you. No character is perfect and Abercrombie is at his best when he's showing you how flawed they are and yet forcing you to love them anyway.

The writing is superb and there are some twists that I didn't see coming. Yarvi's initial foe isn't that hard to figure out but after that, there were a few surprises. One was a bit predictable but it wasn't enough to aggravate me. While the direction of his writing doesn't get lighter, Abercrombie definitely lessens the amount of cursewords and morbid humor. As a fan of his adult series, I was a little disappointed by the latter. I would still be careful with which teens I recommended this to however. It's grimdark fantasy so it still has the violence, gore and dark situations that you'd expect of the genre. I wouldn't recommend it to any teen (or parents) who didn't like Game of Thrones but I like that Abercrombie is adding a taste of grimdark to the young adult fantasy genre.