Sweet Evil -- Wendy Higgins

In the world of Sweet Evil, demons walk among us. And so do their children. The Nephilim are tasked with supporting the evil endeavours of their parents—and if their job performance is poor, they are subjected to torture and/or death—and saddled with strong impulses towards the same vices.

Enter our heroine, Anna Whitt. Who is, unsurprisingly, a special snowflake, different from all the others. Because while it's true that her father is a demon—Belial, the Duke of Substance Abuse—it's also true that her mother was an angel. Anna doesn't know any of this... until she meets dreamboat Kaidan, who is the son of the Duke of Lust.

Okay. So. I'm going to be blunt: this book didn't do it for me. I finished it, but it took me, like, two weeks. Which, for me, is almost unheard of. I liked the premise—making the Nephilim especially prone towards the sins of their father was an especially cool spin—but that was about it.

It's definitely a perfect readalike for Twilight fans*—awkward good girl heroine who, through no action on her part, is maddeningly attractive to every guy she meets; bad boy/dangerous romantic interest who pulls the hot/cold/I want you/I'm not good enough for you/Let's make out/You disgust me thing, which sends Our Heroine into a dark depression; secondary love interest who, despite being Good and Attractive and So On, just can't get a break; lots of making out and talk about Doing It, but no actual Doing It—but unlike some other Twilight readalikes, I wouldn't recommend this one to non-fans.

While the actions/personalities of the characters drove me bananas, I could have gotten past that stuff if the writing had been stronger. As it was, though, well... I won't deny that some of the sexier bits were, indeed, sexy—despite my constant irritation with both leads—but even those parts were saddled with lines like: "When Kaidan looked at me, lust raged in his eyes like a tumultuous island storm." Additionally, dialogue without some sort of infodump was rare, and for a book that clocks in at 450 pages, the characterization was pretty thin.

TL;DR: I'd only recommend this one to die-hard Twilight fans.

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*That said, maybe not the youngest Twilight fans. [SPOILER] Kaidan's job? Is to "introduce" extremely young girls into the world of sexual slavery. Hence a good amount of his self-loathing. [/SPOILER]

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Author page.

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Amazon.

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Book source: ILLed through my library.

Comments

[Chrissy]

This sounds like one of those premises that would work better if it stopped trying to be a romance and just tried to be fantasy with a romantic sub-plot. Dear Lord, with that world building it has the potential to be seriously dark and horrific and have some great anti-heroes, or at least characters who struggled with their nature. I could see weaving romance into it, but it would take some great skill, and the characters would need to bleed for it.
I'm getting tired of fascinating premise but can't escape its formula books.

[Leila]

Agreed. I found it a hugely frustrating read, as the premise really had potential.

[Chrissy]

I'm starting to feel very "get off my lawn" regarding paranormal romance...