Wendy Higgins – Heart Full of Books

Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins
Genre: Fantasy, Contemporary, Romance
Published by: Harper Teen
Pages: 447
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon

I’ve had this book on the shelf for ages. AGES. Somehow, the cover just really put me off from reading this book. (I wonder why! Heh heh!) I didn’t know if I would like the concept, or the writing style, especially since the slogan was ’embrace the forbidden’. Not really something to live by.

It turns out that I was right. This book wasn’t my cup of tea.

I think I’m going to find it really hard to describe, just because this is a 450-ish page book and I think only two significant things happened:
1.) A road trip across country with Anna, the protagonist who’s a super religious half-angel, half-demon, and a boy, Kaiden, who’s a demon womaniser. Usually the rule is if you add a road trip to something, it can only get better. Take ‘Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour’ or ‘Paper Towns’ as examples. However, this was not the case. I didn’t really understand the mission of the trip (that was never even fulfilled) and how quickly Anna was willing to get close to her father whom she hadn’t seen in sixteen years. The pacing was really rubbish throughout this whole book. Days would pass in paragraphs, and between chapters, months would go by. It meant that the time periods that were written about seemed rushed, because the relationship between these two characters blossomed (and died) very quickly.
2.) Some sort of demon training. Anna is the daughter of the demon who had to entice humans to drink excessive amounts of alcohol and/or take illegal drugs. Yippee. I felt very uncomfortable reading these scenes, especially when Anna is dancing on top of a bar, trying to please a married man twice her age. It all just seemed very wrong.

I didn’t like Anna and I didn’t like Kaiden on principle. I hate the ‘you shouldn’t be friends with me’ storyline, Stephanie Meyer already wrote that to death. If I wanted to read about a relationship that occurred regardless of the couple’s safety, I would just read ‘Twilight’.

I didn’t like that Kopano (odd name) was introduced as a point in a love triangle. It made NO SENSE. Since when did Anna harbour feelings for this other demon spawn? Why was there tension between Kaiden and Kope? I think authors need to realise a book can be good without a love triangle present. Actually, it would be refreshing!

I know that this series is a trilogy, and I’ve heard that it just gets better as it progresses. This is odd to hear about a trilogy, especially considering the outcome of ‘Allegiant’ or ‘Mockingjay’. Still, these books are cheaper on Kindle, so I may or may not complete the series. ‘Sweet Evil’ really hasn’t done much to motivate me to continue.

I’d give this book 2 stars. It wasn’t horrific enough to only get one, but there was nothing I especially liked about it to move it up the star rating scale.