Sweet Evil (Sweet Evil, #1)

by Wendy Higgins

[Raven]

Anna has always been able to see the colors of a person's emotions, something she keeps secret and tries to ignore to be a normal girl. One night she meets Kaiden Rowe at a club where he was playing with his band and the attraction is instant. Kaiden tells her that she is just like him, which is a Nephilim. Nephilim work for the Dukes of the various sins, these Dukes are also their fathers. Kaiden's father is the Duke of Lust, and her father is the Duke of alcohol and drug abuse. But Anna is different than the other Nephilim, her mother was an angel, giving her a bit of both good or evil. Now she must adjust to her new life and choose which path she wants to walk down, her angelic side or the more evil tendancies.

This book was really hard for me to rate. On the one hand I wanted to give it a better score because despite all its faults (and oh boy were there a lot of them) I still enjoyed the story. It was a nice read. At the same time I wanted to give it a much lower score because the faults it has are so bad and when I finished reading it I wanted to just bash my head against a wall.

The plot is incredibly small and mild. The first half of the book is all about the romance and sexual frustrations. The second half of the book gets better when the romance starts to fizzle and the actual plot starts taking place, but it was too little too late by then. The plot itself was dull and predictable. The "climax" happened way way way too late in the book and was dull and unfulfilling. This book was very obviously meant to introduce the characters and story to prepare for the rest of the series. While this type of thing can be a good thing when done properly (see [b:Grasping at Eternity|13505141|Grasping at Eternity (The Kindrily Series, #1)|Karen Amanda Hooper|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1337649323s/13505141.jpg|19055352] for a great example) when done badly all it does is frustrate the reader. Sweet Evil is an example of it being done badly. You are left with the book feeling like it was a complete waste of space. You wonder why most of the "romance" and "action" couldnt be wrapped up in the first act and the next part of the series begun immediently.

The characters are dull and flat. The side characters are hardly interesting and worth acknowledging. Anna is a complete Mary Sue. She is too perfect and her "flaws" just make her worse. She cries too often, she is a complete goodie-two-shoes and her "sins" are minor. The author tries to give her a few good flaws and ends up making her rediculous and annoying. She was all over the map with her emotions, she would say one thing and then do another. She didnt act like a real person, much less an overly sheltered teenager starting to break out of her shell of naivity and into the real world.

Kaiden was a hot and cold mess. He was bad and embraced his bad but as soon as he met her he was over the bad and just handling it. Then she obviously started to change him because all bad boys have a heart of gold and can be changed. But change is bad so he pushes her away and only makes her love him more. He tells her he cant see her and then when she screams he shows up at her house to protect her? Make up your mind buddy. The mixed signals just ruined his character even more. So he went from a droll boring jackass to a Mary Sue of his own.. what are boy Mary Sues even called? I shall call him Jim Bob. Jim Bob and Mary Sue, perfect couple. Then the author tries to lean her towards Kope, one of the side characters, in attempts to start a triangle because obviously Kaiden needs to show how much he "really cares" by getting jealous of the two of them spending any time together at all. Then because Miss Mary Sue is sooo perfect, obviously Kope has to fall for her and she doesnt like him like that which breaks his heart. It reminded me of Cal and Sophie in the [b:Hex Hall|5287473|Hex Hall (Hex Hall, #1)|Rachel Hawkins|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1259686913s/5287473.jpg|5354884] books. Cal was this super sweet guy that Sophie should obviously love instead. Kope was the better choice here but Anna wanted Kaiden and only Kaiden. I know the heart cant choose who it loves, but seriously, she was attracted to Kope enough that she couldve given him a chance.

Patti, Anna'a adopted mom.. wow.. this woman. She was in a word, overprotective. No, overprotective isnt strong enough. She was so sheltering that she made normal overprotective parents look loose and leinient. She had the common sense of a fish. She allowed her 16year old daughter to go on a cross country road trip, alone, with a 17year old hormone crazed teenage boy, that oh yeah, they had both just met shortly beforehand. Sure she didnt know he was the demonspawn of lust at the time, but she still considered letting it all happen at all. He couldve been a normal boy and this still wouldve been bad mom award material.

Too many of the plot points happened quite conveniently. The Nun dies without telling Anna what she needed to know to add the drama surrounding the lack of explaination about the sword hilt. Her father needed out of prison and just happened to have a parole hearing the following week. Kaiden hadnt been in four or five pages so he invited Anna's best friend to a party. Patti needs out of the picture for a few days so she magically has to work.

The book was so bad and yet entertaining at the same time. It was a train wreck if Ive ever seen one and as unsettled as it left me feeling I just cant look away so I await the next novel in the series and pray that the story gets better upon its release.