Review: Sweet Evil

Book: Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins
Publication Date: May 1, 2012
Series: The Sweet Trilogy (#1)
Rating: 3 out 5 stars

Synopsis: Embrace the Forbidden

What if there were teens whose lives literally depended on being bad influences?

This is the reality for sons and daughters of fallen angels.
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 willpower 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?


Overall Review:
I've had Sweet Evil on my TBR list for awhile and I was super excited to finally read it. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect but I was hoping for good things. I was disappointed yet not. It was good and I liked it, but it wasn't nearly as good as I was hoping. It was an addicting read and once I started I found it hard to stop, but it was hard to really get into the story itself. While I liked the characters enough I just couldn't relate to them or entirely get them so it was hard to feel a whole lot while reading. I do like Higgins version of angels and demons though. Probably one of the most interesting versions I've read yet! I love the whole concept of them as well as their children. It's actually really interesting and I would have enjoyed Sweet Evil a whole lot more if we focused more on them rather than the stuff we did. Sweet Evil is all about teaching Anna how to be bad and doing bad things, which wouldn't be so bad if all those bad things weren't drinking and doing drugs. I get teenagers do drugs and drink, though they shouldn't, but all these kids were Freshmen and Sophomores which means they were either the same age as me or younger and they did drugs and drank more than I've ever seen or heard. And everyone was okay with it! Not adults so much, surprisingly we didn't meet a whole lot of adults, but almost all the Freshmen and Sophomores were into drinking and partying. I get why Higgins put this in here but I didn't think she had to force this down our throats as much as she did. I get it, they did drugs and drank but did they really have to spend three-fourths of the book doing it? And did all of them really have to? I really hope Sweet Peril isn't like that.

Anna was such a sweet girl, probably one of the sweetest and kindest heroines I've ever read. It could have to do with her age, her naivete, and the fact that she's the daughter of an angel but still. It was so nice to see just how nice she was. I do think she could've grown up a bit, not to say she was childish but she had a lot to learn about how life really worked, but otherwise I didn't want her to change at all. Sadly, she did and not in the way I wanted. She began to take more risks, started being more selfish instead of selfless, she tried to get people to drink and party and didn't feel bad about it, she became a very bad influence instead of a good one. I didn't like it at all. Again, I get why Higgins did it because it really plays into the story of Sweet Evil and the whole trilogy itself but I still wasn't happy about it. There was no character development. Instead of Anna getting better as the story went on she got worse. She went from a carefree, happy, genuinely kind girl to a love sick, selfish, partier who sought out approval from the bad crowd even though she knew they were bad and what she was doing was bad. It was beyond ridiculous and irritating that she changed so drastically and so wrongly. I hope she'll eventually go back to the girl she once was, I liked her a lot better then.

I get the feeling that I just have a dislike for characters named Kai. Besides the fact that he had an accent, and man do I dig guys with accents, he was an awful guy all around. He used Anna constantly. He was a liar, a cheater, a playboy who used girls and loved every minute of it. I know it was a part of his character and how he was raised but I didn't tolerate it one bit. He wasn't good for Anna and quite frankly he was the reason she changed for the bad. I didn't like the romance between them at all. Not only because he was a bad guy and I didn't like him, but he made Anna into an annoying love sick puppy. She became obsessed with his every move, every word he said, everything he wore, every step he took she wanted to know about it. She had spent a weekend with him, two days, and when the weekend was over she fell into a depression and cried constantly because he stopped talking to her. Two days people. Two-freaking-days! It was ridiculous and I don't ship them together at all.

The pace was pretty quick and I had a really hard trouble putting Sweet Evil down, despite some of the issues I had with it. I loved the concept that Higgins went with, her version of angels and demons and whatnot, but I couldn't get into the story. I didn't relate to anyone of the characters, even the ones I liked, and I didn't quite get why some of the smaller things were more enforced than the bigger things. Higgins has a good writing style and definitely has a great imagination when it comes to this sort of thing, if we just spent the book learning about angels, demons, their kids, etc then I would've liked Sweet Evil a whole lot more. However, Sweet Evil was more about Freshmen and Sophomores drinking, doing drugs, having sex, and what not than anything else. We spent about three-fourths of the book reading about kids younger or the same age as me getting drunk off their butts and bragging about having sex with this person or that person or having sex twice in one night. I get that teens do this kind of thing, even though I wish they didn't, but I really don't think we had to hear about it as often as we did. It got to be a bit much. Anna was one of the sweetest and nicest characters I've ever met. I adored her because she was so cute in a naive little girl kind of way. She was almost too nice. Until Kai got a hold of her. It was then she turned into a partier who didn't feel bad about getting other teens to drink, get high, have sex, or anything. She became selfish, a tad bit self absorbed, and annoying. She could still be sweet but she had lost her kindness and understanding. I hated it. Which is part of the reason I hated the romance between her and Kai because he made her that way. He changed her for the wrong and I couldn't stand it, or him. I like the title because I think it fit Anna perfectly about half way through. She was indeed sweet evil. The cover I'm a little iffy on. I love the dress and background but the cover models are pretty eh for me.


Overall Rating:
I give Sweet Evil a 3 out of 5 star rating. I liked it but I didn't love it. I certainly didn't like it as well as I thought I would. There were some really good qualities in Sweet Evil that I liked but they were overshadowed by all the problems and bad qualities. I still plan to continue the series and I'm hoping that Sweet Peril will be better. I suppose I would recommend this series to people who are into angels and demons, people who are into watching good characters go bad, or people into bad guys with sexy accents. Here's to hoping the sequel is better! Thanks for reading!

3/5 stars

~Kayla~