Sweet Evil By Wendy Higgins

Series: The Sweet Trilogy #1

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal

Release Date: May 1st 2012

Source: Bought

Overall Rating: 2.5/5 Stars

Cover Rating: 2/5 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 Anna, the ultimate good girl, has always had the advantage of her angel side to balance the darkness within. 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?

I had heard so many good things about this book so I bought it with very high expectations but unfortunately I didn't love it. It would've been so great but it fell flat. The premise for the story sounded interesting but it just wasn't. The story follows good girl Anna Whitt. She's always known she was different she can feel other people’s emotions after all and it's much more than just empathy. It isn't until she meets bad boy Kaiden that she discovers the true reason behind her strange talents and discovers new ones.

Anna's character began quite promising, she was relatable for once. Anna is nice - it's not often you get a genuinely nice character - and she has a parent who doesn't let her go to all those parties that teenagers in books and TV all seem to go to. But then it went downhill. She was so nice it almost seemed fake, sickly sweet like a Bonbon - they are delicious for the first two or three but after that you begin tasting the processed fakeness behind them. Despite the fact I now have a craving for Strawberry Bonbon's I will move away from the sweet metaphors. Some of the things that came out of Anna’s mouth were truly cringe-worthy, I didn’t know whether to get annoyed by her or pity her. Kaiden had a lot of potential but he too didn’t live up to it. His character was in no way constant, one minute he’s the type of guy to ‘burst out laughing’ and next thing you know he’s ‘cold’ and then he’s ‘vulnerable’. He went through so many personality changes I was beginning to think he was just ‘schizophrenic’. Anna’s parent figure had my vote at first until she let her daughter go on a road trip with an absolute stranger.

Overall the book was more annoying than entertaining. I enjoyed some elements but they were usually cancelled out by an even more annoying event. I have noticed from this book and others that YA is getting a lot cruder. I don’t know how some of it actually qualifies as acceptable for the Young Adult genre. Maybe 50 Shades Of Grey will be considered YA in a couple of years – but let’s hope not. I would recommend this book to people who are less worried about plot and more about entertainment value. Oh and did I mention Anna’s father actively encourages her to drink? Great parental figures in this one.

Favourite Cringe-Worthy Quotes:

“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.”

“Good gracious, he was sexy—a word that had not existed in my personal vocabulary until that moment. This guy was sexy like it was his job or something.”

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