Review-Sweet Venom by Tera Lynn Childs

Sweet Venom by Tera Lynn Childs

Release date: September 6th,2011
Format:Ebook
Publisher:Katherine Tegan Books
Source:Kindle app


Description from Goodreads:

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.

I really love mythology and I really love Tera Lynn Childs other series ,Oh.My.Gods.,so I figured this book would be win-win. And it was. I love all the monsters, all the ways she used the mythology and all the mystery! The surprise with Ursusla and the mytsery about Nick.(I really hope Sweet Shadows explains more about Nick) I'm still wondering about Thane.

One thing that caught me up was when the girl encountered a Satyr and Gretchen describes it as half-man/half-horse .As much mythology as I've read(which is a lot),  the Saytr has always been half-man/half-goat. That kinda stuck in my head as I continued reading. Otherwise, it was an enjoyable and addictive read.

The Ending: When's the sequel coming out? Oh, it's out already? Brb.

I'm going to give this one 4 stars. Almost made it to five,but the Satyr thing bumped it down.


---Jodie

Guest Review by Sana: Lord Loss

Lord Loss (The Demonata #1) by Darren Shan

Grubbs Grady was a normal kid. Sure, he liked to play awful pranks on his sister, and his parents had a strange obsession with chess, but, overall, Grubbs’ life was basically normal. That is, normal until he comes home to find his family brutally slaughtered by demons. Lord Loss, the first book in the Demonata series, takes you Grubbs' admittance into a mental institute, and his strange relationship with his new-found Uncle Dervish. There is also the matter of finding out why demons killed his family. Not to mention, how werewolves and chess get involved.

If you are squeamish, this book isn’t for you. This book is so packed full of gore, it couldn’t even be made into a successful horror film. It would require far too much fake blood.  Magic allows the characters to sustain a lot more pain than what would be realistically possible, so, there are a lot more gruesome injuries. The descriptions of torture and murder are especially vivid. It was a graphically violent book, with a lot of striking imagery.

Most of the characters were very charismatic, even the antagonist, Lord Loss. It was very easy to root for Grubbs Grady. He was snarky and sarcastic without being too unrealistic. I thought it was important that Darren Shan had Grubbs institutionalized, even though it didn’t really add to the overall plot; it connected the whole story to the real world. The real world connection is what really makes these stories scary. The grisly gore without the connection would mean nothing. This book has the potential to keep people awake at night, because it connects the frightening violence to the real world.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is not squeamish, and is looking for something exciting, but easy. This particular book is not full of deep, societal insights, or any complicated political plots. It is really just about a kid being really awesome and fighting demons. It is a light read, entertaining, amusing, and quite dark. The combination of light banter and sarcasm of the characters with the dark, somewhat disturbing violence creates a really unique mood. When reading it, you feel like screaming and laughing at the same time. Certain concepts of the book are really amusing when they are first mentioned, then alarming when described. It was really well-balanced. It was dark, and scary, and witty and fun to read at the same time.

This book was fast-paced, and funny, even if certain paragraphs cause your stomach to flip. If you are looking for a quick, slightly horrifying, yet entertaining read, Lord Loss is the book for you.

Guest review by Sana