Book Review: Sweet Venom

Author: Tera Lynn Childs
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Series: Medusa Girls #1
Release Date: September 6, 2011
Pages: 352
Read it in: 2 days
Source: The Library

Summary: Grace just moved to San Francisco and is excited to start over at a new school. The change is full of fresh possibilities, but it’s also a tiny bit scary. It gets scarier when a minotaur walks in the door. And even more shocking when a girl who looks just like her shows up to fight the monster.

Gretchen is tired of monsters pulling her out into the wee hours, especially on a school night, but what can she do? Sending the minotaur back to his bleak home is just another notch on her combat belt. She never expected to run into this girl who could be her double, though.

Greer has her life pretty well put together, thank you very much. But that all tilts sideways when two girls who look eerily like her appear on her doorstep and claim they're triplets, supernatural descendants of some hideous creature from Greek myth, destined to spend their lives hunting monsters.

These three teenage descendants of Medusa, the once-beautiful gorgon maligned by myth, must reunite and embrace their fates in this unique paranormal world where monsters lurk in plain sight.

LC's Take:

Sweet Venom had pretty much everything that I love in a book-- awesome plot line, tons of action, wonderfully likable characters, humor that made me giggle throughout, and a small helping of sweet romance on the side. This was my first ever mythology book, and I definitely was not disappointed!

So let's talk about the main characters. There are three girls in this book-- Grace, Gretchen and Greer-- all who turn out to be sisters, or triplets actually. I loved every one of them because they were each unique and interesting in their own individual ways. Grace was sort of klutzy and insecure, but with a kind heart, Gretchen was the kick-butt martial arts girl who has a sweet, vulnerable side under her tough exterior, and Greer was the prissy little rich girl, who ends up being really funny and endearing at the same time. Every sister was multidimensional and stood out on her own. Furthermore, the story is shared between all three of them with their different perspectives, and they each had their own voice, so I was never confused as to who I was reading about from chapter to chapter.

The narrative definitely flowed well and was excitingly fast-paced. Sometimes I can get a little leery about reading a book with multiple perspectives because the story can get choppy and confusing, but this was not a problem in this book at all. In this case, reading from the POVs of all three sisters made the story unique and interesting. Also, for someone who doesn't know anything about Greek mythology beyond whatever I learned in 6th grade, the story and events were explained well and I never felt like I was lost. I really loved this story because it was fun, full of action, and had tons of humor sprinkled in throughout. And THEN there was the ending-- whoa, I was NOT expecting that!! Talk about a cliff hanger, I cannot wait to get my hands on the next book in this series!

So basically, Sweet Venom is definitely a must-read, and if you don't have this on your TBR list yet I highly, highly recommend adding it because it will rock your socks off. I mean, rock them right off. I had so much fun reading it and can't say enough good things about it. Really, seriously, you NEED to read this book because it was absolutely amazing!

~Cover Talk~

I really like this book cover for its simplicity, and for what it implies about the story. We know from the synopsis that this is going to be a mythological story about the descendants of Medusa, so I love that this was "hinted" at with the girl's hair, but it isn't taken so literally that it comes across as cheesy. I also like that you can't see the girl's face, since it gives an air of mystery. Finally, the swirly patterns of the hair are echoed throughout the book at the beginning of each chapter. Altogether, this was a very well-thought out book design that was executed brilliantly!

LC's Rating:

Sweet Venom is definitely a must-read! It was just so much fun, and I could NOT put it down. Awesome characters, awesome plot, just the right amount of high school drama and romance-- go, go, go and get this book!