Sweet Evil (Sweet, #1) in And So It Begins Reading Challenge

Jul 25, 2011 Ezmirelda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5-stars, the-creme-de-la-creme, must-read, angels, demons

I'm going to be upfront with you about this book—Sweet Evil tops the books coming out in 2012 easily. There's no way I can tell you how much I utterly adore this book, which is why I took me forever to write a proper review for it. I'll start off with why I love this book so much. Originality—finally someone who gets it right! Among all the books out there about angels and demons Sweet Evil has the most original take on them that I've read. The whole badge concept and the fact that the Nephilim I'm going to be upfront with you about this book—Sweet Evil tops the books coming out in 2012 easily. There's no way I can tell you how much I utterly adore this book, which is why I took me forever to write a proper review for it. I'll start off with why I love this book so much. Originality—finally someone who gets it right! Among all the books out there about angels and demons Sweet Evil has the most original take on them that I've read. The whole badge concept and the fact that the Nephilim's sole purpose is being bad influences to humans is pure genius!

The characters. If there's any YA character that is swoon-worthy than Kaidan Rowe is exactly that. Every time he's in a scene of the book I'm practically bouncing up and down with excitement. There isn't a thing I don't like about him. Kaidan is my man. ;) Anna is an amazing female protagonist, and I felt even the side characters were all very well developed. The plot's pacing is perfect. I never felt bored anywhere or felt the need to stop. There was always something interesting to keep my attention. Which brings me to my 3rd reason for loving this—high stakes. The higher the stakes are in a book the more I want to read it. Sweet Evil does not fail in making that happen.

I am completely enamored with SweetEvil. It's one of those books you're only expecting to read for about a half hour or so (because you're busy and have other work you should probably be attending to) and end up reading the whole thing in one sitting, forgetting all the things you had to do that day (Spoken from true experience!). So yeah, even though I've already read this I'm going straight to the bookstore in May to get a shiny brand new copy and will probably re-read it several times until the next one comes out. :)

You can also see this review on my blog PARAFANTASY.

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EXTRA THOUGHTS on the whole cross country road trip, her mother shouldn't have allowed her to go, etc stuff that I've seen here:

OKAY. So if you have read through the entire novel you know that Patti (Anna's mom) knew that Anna was never going to be just a normal person. She knows that Anna is destined for something. NOW Patti is one of those really (and I mean REALLY) religious people, where if she knew that God wanted her to do something she would do it. Now you can't say parents like this don't exist in the REAL world because they most certainly do. She knows that Anna going on the CROSS-COUNTRY TRIP has a great deal to do with her mission, that if she didn't complete it in time that it wouldn't be working well in God's favor. I'm not much of a religious person but I knew a lot of the things in this book was referenced from biblical text.

That is why it makes sense to me that PATTI would allow Anna to go on the trip. If you read the scene about Anna's birth and how Patti came to adopt her it makes sense why Patti would believe that letting Anna go was the right thing for her to do. NOW, if I didn't know any backstory on Anna's birth and wasn't paying attention to her mother's attitude toward religion then I would have thought her consenting to the trip was a crazy idea but that is not the case here. :/ ...more

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May 07, 2012 Cat rated it liked it

I'm really torn about this one. I have been anticipating this book for awhile now and I think I worked myself into such excitement that it was easy to be let down, and for the same reason I continually tried to push my way through the not-so-great parts hoping that my premature fan-girling would be justified. I have seen so many reviewers raving about this book like it's the second coming of the Twilight phenomenon and certainly they are more than entitled to their opinions (that is what we blog I'm really torn about this one. I have been anticipating this book for awhile now and I think I worked myself into such excitement that it was easy to be let down, and for the same reason I continually tried to push my way through the not-so-great parts hoping that my premature fan-girling would be justified. I have seen so many reviewers raving about this book like it's the second coming of the Twilight phenomenon and certainly they are more than entitled to their opinions (that is what we bloggers do right?) but I just didn't get that thrill. Sweet Evil is not by any means a bad read, but it also is not the amazing story I expected it to be. I went into it expecting steamy romance, thrilling action and a gripping, unique plot. I got about half of those things which isn't too bad, but after being so excited to read it, it fell short.

As always let's start with the good (including that absolutely gorgeous cover). Steam. The steaminess of this book cannot be denied. There were certainly times when I felt like I needed to open a window and just cool off for a second. In fact, parts of the book, felt more adult than young adult. This is probably because the main heartthrob of the story, Kaidan Rowe, is the son of the Duke of Lust. He definitely takes after his father. He, naturally, falls for sweet little Anna who never swears, or lies, or drinks and certainly does not do anything Kaidan might have in mind. When the two of them have to travel cross-country alone things really heat up. One of the most redeeming things about the book is the way that Anna and Kaidan change each other throughout the story. Anna lets down her guard a little when she's with Kaidan and he, in turn, allows her to see glimpses of his vulnerability. They really start to love each other, in large part because of Kaidan's damage from never truly having love in his life. One of the sweetest lines in the book comes from Anna's inner dialogue after discussing Kaidan's loveless upbringing:

"I tried to imagine young, inquisitive Kaidan looking up at the demon in his life, desperate for his attention. I wished I could hold that little boy." - Ch. 14

The love between the two of them is what we all like to see in books, raw and real and deep. Another part of the book that I enjoyed was the mythology. Higgins does a great job of setting up the mythology behind the angels and the demons and their children. She also does not have any qualms with being very brutal about the way the demons behave. There are parts of this book that are very hard to get through because they are violent and heart wrenching, which I think is important when we are talking about evil. She really drives the point home.

That's where the love sort of stopped for me. As far as uniqueness goes, I can't really say the plot was all that different from most paranormal romances. Good girl meets bad guy. Girl tries to change guy. Bad guy is still bad, but broken underneath. Girl finds out she has flaws too. They can't be together but probably will, maybe, at some point. It's fun and everything, but I was hoping for more of a different vibe with this one. The only real difference I can see is that Kaidan isn't really the hero type. He has a tendency to stand around and be freaked out when Anna is in mortal peril instead of actually jumping in and doing something about it. And then there's Anna. Don't get me wrong, I liked Anna, but I didn't love her. She seemed weak and scared all the time and she cries almost constantly. I'm a big crier, but Anna put me to shame. I kept wanting to shake her and say "Snap out of it! You have important things to be concentrating on!" Next, there's the resolution problem. I didn't feel like this book had much of a resolution. It is going to be part of a series so obviously they can't explain everything in the first book, but after I finished it I kind of felt jipped. It felt like the entire book was just a prelude to the next one. Finally, I felt like there was a lot of finger wagging going on. I realize it's a book about angels and demons, but I just felt preached to much of the time. It seemed a little judge-y.

Basically, this book was entertaining. And it did keep me reading. Unfortunately I didn't feel like there was a great pay off. I would still recommend this book if you want something to keep you engaged for a few days and I will be reading the next one because I need to know what happens. I just hope that the rest of the series is a little meatier.

If you want to read more reviews, check out my blog: http://catiesmoviesinmyhead.blogspot.... ...more

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Aug 07, 2011 Nicole rated it it was amazing

Shelves: angels-nephilim

4.5/5
Four words: Kaidan is SO hot! Full review to come.

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Jan 02, 2014 What Makes Patri rated it really liked it

Shelves: tbr-pile, real-book-challenge

We are The Unofficial Addiction Book Fan Club, to know more about this book, go to the post in our website:

Sweet Evil (The Sweet Trilogy, #1) by Wendy Higgins

If you are interested, you can visit our website:

The Unofficial Addiction Book Fan Club

The Unofficial Addiction Book Fan Club's Review:

Rate: 4 stars

Review:

Sweet Evil's the perfect first book for the Sweet Trilogy. It's a refreshing story about angels and demons and nephilim worth reading.

The story starts with sweet, innocent Ann ...more

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