The Sweet Trilogy Review

The Sweet Trilogy Review
By Wendy Higgins

 

Sweet Evil Summary from Goodreads

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?

My Review:

For this review, I will go through each book individually and also give my thoughts on the series as a whole.

The entire series as a whole was pretty good and fairly enjoyable. It is a paranormal romance, so there is a lot of angst and it can be kind of cheesy sometimes, but if that is what you're looking for, then it is an enjoyable read.

The main characters in this series weren't that outstanding, but they were okay. The main character, Anna, and her love interest, Kaidan, were both kind of stereotypical. Anna was the plain, mousy, good girl who thought there was nothing special about her until she one day learns of her heritage. Despite this, I did like Anna and did like seeing her progression through the series, because she definitely got stronger, and she was likable enough most of the time, but I didn't love her and there was nothing that made her feel super special or really stand out to me. 

Kaidan was also the stereotypical bad boy drummer, with a British accent, dark hair and really blue eyes. And he's the Son of Lust, which means he has stronger feelings of lust than most normal teenagers. Yeah. That makes things interesting for the story. I still liked Kaidan, even though he was kind of a jerk to Anna sometimes, but he also had some good character progression through the series.

Sweet Evil is probably my favorite of the series. Sweet Evil is very heavy on the romance and the tension between the main character and her love interest, which I did enjoy and made the book pretty interesting. Sweet Evil is probably the most romance based of the series and I think it has the best plot of the series because it doesn't try to take on too much at once. I found the writing easy to read and I did read this pretty quickly, so that was a plus. I gave Sweet Evil 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Sweet Peril is my least favorite of the series. I felt like this book fell into the category of being a middle, filler book. My main problem with this book is that it felt like not a lot happened even though almost two years passed in the book. There were a lot of jumps in time and I felt like there wasn't enough progression of plot to support all of the jumps in time. I did enjoy the romance in this book, though, and I still thought that was pretty well done. Like the first book, I flew through this and still enjoyed it even though there were a few problems. I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars.

Sweet Reckoning is one that I had a lot of mixed feelings about. I really liked the ending and I thought it was satisfying and wrapped up the story nicely with no loose ends. In the middle, though, I just got stuck. Maybe it was because I had just read Shadow and Bone and I was in a bit of a reading slump or maybe I really just didn't like it, I don't know, either way, I just stopped reading it. I felt like the story had been dragged out a little bit too much and I kind of just wanted to reach the climactic scene that we had been waiting for. Once I started to read it again, I did enjoy it and I did get a little emotional at the end. I gave this book 4.25 out of 5 stars.

TBR Takedown 2.0 | TBR

TBR Takedown is a week long read-a-thon from July 25-31. TBR Takedown is created and hosted by Shannon at leaning lights.

Here is a link to her announcement video for the read-a-thon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PC06j9RsaM

Here is a link to her twitter where she will be hosting sprints and daily challenges throughout the week along with a few other hosts: https://twitter.com/leaninglights

This TBR is slightly late since the read-a-thon started today, but I am still going to try to participate in TBR Takedown as much as I can, and hopefully I get a lot of reading done. For this read-a-thon there are a few challenges you can choose to complete, and I will be basing my TBR off of those challenges.

The first challenge is to read a first book in a series and I will be reading Angelfall by Susan Ee for that challenge. The second challenge is to read a sequel book in a series and for that I will be reading Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo. The third challenge is to read a book that is out of your comfort zone and for that I will either be reading Landline by Rainbow Rowell, since I don't read many adult books, or Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit, since I don't read much non-fiction. The fourth challenge is to read a book that has been on your shelf for over a year (or the longest) and I have chosen Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout for that challenge. The fifth and final challenge is to read one of your most recently hauled books and for that I have chosen The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I'm looking forward to participating in this read-a-thon and I hopefully will finish most of the books on my TBR.

Shadow and Bone Review

Shadow and Bone Review (Shadow and Bone Book #1)

By Leigh Bardugo

Summary from Goodreads:

Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.

Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.

Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha . . . and the secrets of her heart.

My Review:

I must begin this by saying how much I loved this book. Shadow and Bone completely blew me away. I went into this book knowing there was a good amount of hype around it, so I tried not to keep my expectations too high, but there were still expectations. This book, however, exceeded all of my expectations and it was just so great and wonderful and enjoyable.

At first, the book seems confusing, because, as the reader, we are just thrown into the world and magic system, so the words were all new and foreign, along with the politics of the world. Leigh Bardugo does a good job world-building though, and she never just dumped information on us all at once, but rather slowly explained more things as time went on. Leigh Bardugo's writing in general was also amazing. She had some of the most beautiful descriptions, her writing being both beautiful and easy to read, and she created some fascinating characters, including Alina, our main character, and the Darkling. Alina was a strong character and knew how to hold her own after being thrown into this entirely new world of being Grisha. And then there's the Darkling. 

Before I even read this book, I had heard about the Darkling and everyone’s love for him. I was hoping I would also love him, and he definitely stole my heart. I have so many feelings for the Darkling that I can’t explain, but he is a very complex and amazing character, and one of the highlights of the book. Leigh Bardugo created an amazing character when she created the Darkling. In the beginning, I mostly read for the Darkling, and while the plot was good, I was just more interested in the Darkling. Around halfway, however, I began really reading for the plot. There was a lot of world building and getting used to the magic system in the beginning of the book, but in the last half of the book, I was completely captured by the plot, and I found the book more action-packed, and this solidified my love for the book.

Overall, I loved this book and I cannot wait to read the sequel, which I will be doing very soon. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone.

I gave this book 4.5 out of 5 stars. 

The Heir Review

The Heir Review (The Selection Book #4)

By Kiera Cass

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE SELECTION, THE ELITE, AND THE ONE

Summary from Goodreads:

Princess Eadlyn has grown up hearing endless stories about how her mother and father met. Twenty years ago, America Singer entered the Selection and won the heart of Prince Maxon—and they lived happily ever after. Eadlyn has always found their fairy-tale story romantic, but she has no interest in trying to repeat it. If it were up to her, she'd put off marriage for as long as possible.

But a princess's life is never entirely her own, and Eadlyn can't escape her very own Selection—no matter how fervently she protests.

Eadlyn doesn't expect her story to end in romance. But as the competition begins, one entry may just capture Eadlyn's heart, showing her all the possibilities that lie in front of her . . . and proving that finding her own happily ever after isn't as impossible as she's always thought. 

My Review:

When I first heard the original Selection trilogy was going to be extended, I had very mixed feelings about it. I felt like the story had been wrapped up in The One and I was not sure where The Heir was going to take the story. However, I did quite enjoy the original three books and I still wanted to know how Illéa was affected by Maxon coming into power and ending the caste system. Either way, I still read the book pretty soon after publication and flew through it. The Heir had the same addictive quality that I found the first three books in the series had, and I did end up liking the book.

The Heir did address some of the politics in Illéa, but that was definitely not the main part of the story. This book, like the original three in the series, was very much centered on the romance and relationships that Eadlyn was developing during her selection. I felt like there were more politics in this book, however, than in the first three books, since we see from the perspective of Eadlyn, who is going to become queen someday and has to know about what is happening in her country.

Eadlyn is our main character in this novel, and for those who have read The Selection, we remember America’s infamous indecisiveness and stubbornness, which made her very hard to truly like at times. Eadlyn, like America, is not always the most likeable character. I would not say that Eadlyn is indecisive, but she can be very stubborn, which we especially see at the beginning of the novel. However, her stubbornness felt kind of childish sometimes, and I felt like she was just retaliating against her parents instead being stubborn for what she believes in. She also came off as a bit of a spoiled brat at times, which probably came from her growing up in the palace, but that cannot be completely to blame since Maxon never acted spoiled like Eadlyn does. Her attitude just really bothered me at times. All of this did leave room for character development, and we did begin to see Eadlyn start to develop later in the novel, so hopefully she will change more in the next book and become more likeable.

Throughout the book, I liked some of the relationships that were forming, especially when Eadlyn allowed herself to open up to the boys. I felt bad for the boys sometimes because Eadlyn was so closed off and just plain rude to them at times, but many of them were actually quite accepting of Eadlyn and that made me grow to like some of them. Many of the boys in the selection, specifically Kile, Henri and Erik, were much more likeable than Eadlyn, and helped balance out Eadlyn’s harshness at times.

Overall, I liked and enjoyed this book, and I would recommend this to anybody who wants more the Selection world. If you enjoyed the original books, I think you will also enjoy this book.    

I gave this book 3.5 out of 5 stars.