Wednesday 26 September 2012

Sweet Venom - Tera Lynn Childs


Sweet Venom – Tera Lynn Childs

Pages: 360
Publisher: Templar
Release Date: 4th September 2012
Edition: UK paperback, review copy

Other Titles by this Author: Oh.My.Gods., Goddess Boot Camp, Forgive My Fins, Fins are Forever

GRACE is new in town. It’s scary, starting over, but it gets scarier when she runs into a minotaur. And scarier still when a girl who looks just like her rocks up to fight it.

GRETCHEN is fed up of fighting monsters, especially on school nights. Getting rid of a minotaur is easy, but she never expected to run into her double in the process.

GREER is perfection personified. But her world is knocked off its immaculate axis when two identical girls appear on her doorstep and claim they’re all demon-hunting sisters.

Meet Grace, Gretchen and Greer- three teenage descendents of Medusa must embrace their fates in a world where mythological monsters hide in plain sight.

I enjoyed Tera Lynn Childs’ previous books which had a basing in Greek mythology so I was expecting to love Sweet Venom, but unfortunately fell a little short for me.

Sweet Venom began well with a dual narration split between Gretchen and Grace who couldn’t be more different. Greer doesn’t come into the story until about three quarters of the way through the novel and I couldn’t help but feel that it would have been so much better if her existence wasn’t mentioned in the blurb of the book. It could have been a fantastic plot twist, but instead I was waiting for her to appear.

I did find all three of the sisters to be fairly stereotypical, however. They were each so different that they fell into types of people that wouldn’t get along in a high school setting. I guess it just felt a little done before. That said, I did really love Grace – she was the first of the three characters that felt real to me. Saying that, Gretchen, Grace and Greer all had distinct and clear voices that were easily distinguishable. There were some very intriguing secondary characters as well: Milo, Nick, Thane and Ms West to name but a few...

I’ve been a fan of Greek mythology since being introduced to it in year five so I’m always up for a re-telling and Medusa is one that I haven’t come across very often. I loved Tera Lynn Childs’ take on Medusa’s story and her legacy and I hope that there will be a lot more about it in subsequent books.

Sadly, I did feel rather pressured to read Sweet Venom so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I may have under my own steam. I was intrigued by the mythology, however, so I may still read the rest of the series.

Thank you to Templar for sending me a copy for review.

Sophie 

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the review. It's annoying when you read a blurb and anticipate something that could have been really shocking had it not been mentioned from the get-go. I'll have a go at Childs' first series before I get into this one, since it sounds more fun. :P

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  2. I agree with everything you said! I thought the same thing about Greer, and I thought the three girls weren't unique characters at all! I liked it but didn't love it - great review anyway :)

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  3. Get what you mean about blurbs ruining it for you - that sucks. At least the mythology was good, I would read it for that!

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  4. I kinda can see where you are coming form with this… I often dont remind myself of the blurbs once I start reading the book so I forget that Greer was mentioned and becuase of that her coming into the story felt a lot smoother and more shocking so I definitely agree that she shouldn't be mentioned in the blurb! :)

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