I don’t even know where to begin with this review.  After finishing this book I said this on Twitter.

I’m emotionally wrecked by the ending of Half Lost. Now how am I supposed to sleep? It was worth it though. @Sa11eGreen

— Beth D. (@Bethly126) March 15, 2016

So yeah.  That ending.  I can’t say what it is because that would be an obvious spoiler but damn.  I’m still in tears thinking about it.  This series has been very surprising.  Sally Green did not hold back in the finally. It was chaotic and tense and painful.  I’m heartbroken for so many characters, Nathan and particular.  He is a boy who his whole life has been told he is bad for because of who he’s father is.  He is not and has never been.  Yes, he has done bad things. Some forgivable and some quite questionable but not a bad person.  He has from a young age been tortured and manipulated.  Used for one groups goals for another.  He had few people who truly cared about him and betrayed by one he truly cared about.  Only to find his true love, his soul mate.  The one person who truly believed in him and that is Gabriel.  I spent most of the first half, hoping that Nathan would look up an see Gabriel for who he really is and see that his love wasn’t just one way.  Gabriel questioned Nathan, he challenged him not because he didn’t believe in him but because he did.  He wanted what was best for Nathan and willing to go along with him no matter what.  It was a beautiful love story.  Nathan is not in a good place at the beginning of book but works his way through.  He may have thrown himself with the Alliance because it was best chance for revenge but by then end he understood that the Alliance was the best way to get his freedom.  As long as Soul and his White Witches continue to rule, he would always be watching his back.  So he does what no one else can.  He leads the fight.  War is hard.  There is always a price and the price Nathan paid may have been too much.  I know it was for me.  I felt a little broken like Nathan was by the end.  The ending was nothing buy heartbreaking and tragic but happy endings don’t always happen in real life either.

Half Lost unexpectedly helping me with my Diverse Lives, Diverse Stacks Reading Challenge by being a book with a Queer Character.  In the previous books, Gabriel’s feelings for Nathan were pretty clear but besides a kiss and some hints in Half Wild I didn’t think that Nathan would return Gabriel’s feelings.  I hope he would.  There was no confusion.  No pronouncement, I am Gay or Bi or Queer.  Just this was the person he wanted to be with and that was it.  I do believe that Nathan did love Annalisse but not in love with her.  She was first person outside his Grandma and siblings that treated him like he could be good or was good and he so desperately wanted but that wasn’t love.  There was nothing fake or forced about his relationship with Gabriel it was true.