Rating:


Author: Wendy Higgins

Publication: May 1st, 2012

Add: GoodReads | Amazon

Description: What if there were teens whose lives depended on being bad influences?
This is the reality for sons and daughters of fallen angels in Sweet Evil.

Tenderhearted Southern girl, Anna Whitt, was born with the sixth sense to see and feel emotions of other people. She’s aware of a struggle within herself, an inexplicable pull toward danger, but it isn’t until she turns sixteen and meets the alluring Kaidan Rowe that she discovers her terrifying heritage, and her will-power is put to the test. He’s the boy your daddy warned you about. If only someone had warned Anna.

Forced to face her destiny, will Anna embrace her halo or her horns?
Via GoodReads.

My Review: 

From the moment I read the description of Sweet Evil, I was dying to get my hands on a copy. I mean, a bad boy? Count me in! And it was listed under demons, which happen to be my favorite paranormal twist in books. With a creative and unique storyline that kept me reading from beginning to end, and some smokin' hot scenes with the previously mentioned yummy bad boy, I wasn't disappointed.

If you know me, you know that my favorite kind of books are the ones that don't shy away from the darker aspects of paranormal literature (i.e. death, demons, evil, etc). Well, Sweet Evil didn't shy away from anything, and even took a new path of evil that I hadn't read before - the seven deadly sins. To be completely honest, I've never done anything "bad" in my life. I live a happy, sheltered life with my books.

So it was really interesting to read as the characters partook in and promoted drinking, drugs, lust, adultery, envy, and more. Educational, you could say. "My God, why where the characters doing that?!", your grandmother might say. Well, when the description said "What if there were teens whose lives depended on being bad influences?", it meant it literally.

As I said earlier, Sweet Evil focused on the seven deadly sins. There is a fallen angel, aka demon, on Earth to represent each of the sins. It's their job to spread their specific sin through the human populous, slowly corrupting them and turning them against God. These Dukes of Sin, inevitably, have kids with humans over the years. These kids are called nephlim. It's the nephlim's job to help their fathers spread their specific sin through the world in any way they can, or else. So, literally, their lives depend on promoting envy, gluttony, lust, and even substance abuse, depending on which sin their father represents. This very unique storyline was definitely my favorite part about reading Sweet Evil. It was creative and intriguing. The main chracters, however, weren't nearly as great.

A lot of YA books feature the good girl meets bad boy tale, but Sweet Evil brought that to a whole new level. Which wasn't entirely a good thing to me. When I say it was on a whole new level, I mean both the good and the bad were, like, amplified. Ana was the epitome of sugar, spice and everything nice. She was sweet and kind, but also overly, annoyingly innocent and naive. During the beginning of the book she tells a lie about Kaidan to a complete stranger, and then immidiately tells them it was actually a lie and then later in the book tells Kaidan about the little lie. I mean, really? Just drop it. And then her blind obsession with Kaidan also made me frustrated.

So, you know how I said that the bad in bad boy was amplified too? Kaidan was a complete man whore. As the son of the Duke of Lust, forced to spread lust for his father, it wasn't really his fault. But still. Ana and Kaidan would be having a smokin' hot scene and I kept thinking, where have those hands been..? Then, again not really his fault, Kaidan kept "working" with other girls after said smokin' hot scenes with Ana. Despite my great dislike of his hoeish ways, Kaidan is undeniably hot. I'll give Ana that.

“He was smoking hot. As in H-O-T-T, hott. I’d never understood until that moment why girls insisted on adding an extra t. This guy was extra-t-worthy.”

But that does not give Ana the excuse to pull a Bella Swan signature curl-up-and-die-because-he-left move when Kaidan decides to have one of his silent treatments (which he would go on and off doing through the book like the wind changes direction). So maybe he was doing it to "protect her", but it's not like we haven't heard that line before. Mostly I'm just annoyed at Ana for putting up with it and having Kaidan withdrawal depressions. Don't get me wrong, I overall liked Ana, but come on girl.

Sweet Evil took a completely fresh look at the angels, demons, and nephlim that we have come to know and love in YA literature. Exciting, creative, and fun to read, I had Sweet Evil finished in record time. It would've definitely gotten a full 5 hearts from me if it hadn't been for my little issues with Ana and Kaidan. I recommend Sweet Evil to anyone looking for a great read with an original storyline a little darker than your average YA.

*I want to say thank you to Tess at My Pathway to Books for giving me this book for winning one of her giveaways. Thank you so much!*

Summed Up:

A great start to the new series. Loved the unique storyline and all of the edgey scenes in the book. Had a hot romance too! Only drawback - the main characters annoyed me sometimes.