REVIEW: Sweet Venom by Tera Lynn Childs

Watch out, all you mythological beasties roaming the streets of San Francisco - There's a new kick-ass team of demon-fighters coming your way - Meet Grace, who just moved to San Francisco. It's a tiny bit scary, starting over, but it gets scarier when a minotaur walks in the door. And even more shocking when a girl who looks exactly like her turns up to fight the monster. Then, there's Gretchen, who is fed up of monsters pulling her out into the small hours, especially on a school night. Getting rid of a minotaur is just another notch on Gretchen's combat belt, but she never expected to run into this girl who could be her double in the process. And Greer, who has her life pretty well put together, thank you very much. But everything tilts sideways when two girls who look eerily like her appear on her doorstep and claim they're all sisters. These three teenage descendants of Medusa must reunite and embrace their fates in this unique paranormal world where monsters lurk in plain sight.

I  absolutely loved Tera Lynn Childs' 'Fins' series, and had pretty high expectations for Sweet Venom. And while I liked it, it did disappoint me. There were good and bad points to this book - I'll outline them all for you in this review.

I'll start with the negatives - I may as well save the best for last!

the characters: Grace, Greer and Gretchen were all likeable, (yes I liked Greer even though she was a snob!) but they were really typical characters. The plain, clumsy girl, the tough girl, the snob girl with the fragile inside layer - it's all been done before! I found them to be boring and predictable. I also didn't like Nick at all - he wasn't even cute, he was just annoying. I did like Milo though, and Thane seemed like an interesting enough character, but all round the characters didn't impress me. They felt very one dimensional - not real at all!

the plot: I honestly had no idea, even towards the end of the book, where the story was supposed to be going. We basically just heard about Gretchen and Graces' (quite boring) lives. Greer didn't come into the book till near the end, and I can't help wishing that she wasn't mentioned in the blurb - discovering that the three girls were triplets could have been a great twist, but it wasn't because we knew that it was coming. That's another thing - there were hardly any plot twists. There was the one about Una at the end, but I didn't really feel shocked - maybe it's because to be honest, I didn't care about the characters!

Now I'll move onto the positives:
 the writing: I love Tera Lynn Child's writing, and this book, despite all of it's flaws, was pretty fun to read! It was humorous and just all round quite enjoyable to read.

the Greek mythology: as some of you probably know, I'm a a huge fan of Greek mythology! The author took the myth of the monster Medusa, and portrayed her to be a guardian instead - not evil. It was a really interesting take on the story, which the author wrote cleverly. I also loved reading about the fights between the girls and the beasties, and learning about the monsters they fought - I would have loved if more information was included in the book, but that probably would have bored some people!

Conclusion: While Sweet Venom had a lot of flaws, I still liked it, and enjoyed it. The ending is a good one, and makes me want to read the next book soon! I think this is a series I will be continuing with - hopefully I'll enjoy the next book more!

                                                                Rating: 3/5

Source: For Review - a massive thanks to the publisher for sending me this in exchange for an honest review.

Format: Proof
Pages: 320

Age group: 12+

Official Publication Date: 1st September 2012 
Publisher: Templar Publishing