☆☆☆☆☆ (0 stars)
Ooowee!!! You have to imagine me making that sound as I think about this. I just finished this book, and this is all coming in hot. There’s a lot to say about this- the increasingly and incredibly Christian themes, the insane hypocritical nature of the horniness in this story, the sexism, the premise, whatever Kopano was, Kaiden’s participation in crimes against humanity….
Oh yeah. You thought this was a generic para-ro about a good girl falling for a bad boy and they’re both half-fallen-angels? You’re right! And then the next 60% of the book happen, because pacing and story structure is off the rails here. There ARE no rails on the coaster of Sweet Evil.
Let me be your conductor.
Premise
Okay, I for sure saw this book a ton over the years, but never picked it up. It was vaguely familiar, but sounded uninteresting, even from a ‘I love bad books’ point of view. The back is like ‘what if some teens literally had to be bad influences to survive’?, but neglects to mention this is because they are all the children of Dukes of Hell who force them to inspire and emulate sins as part of the ongoing war for souls and against Heaven.
I read angels and demon books without hesitation, but even just knowing that is way better than some vague ‘cursed to be bad influences’ or whatever. But yeah, this is angels and demons, really angels, so of course I had to grab it.
Anna is our first person narrator, who of course begins ignorant to her true nature. She does, however, know she has special powers- a whole lot of them. She can see emotions as auras. She can will herself to feel emotions of other people. She has super senses. She can’t get ill or catch any disease. If she drinks or takes drugs, it wears off extremely quickly. She can see guardian angels and demonic spirits. She later gets the ability to psychically will people to follow orders too.
Basically, Anna is really OP for someone who doesn’t do jack the entire book… since all but the last are also traits of the other Nephilim, and her love interest generally takes care of problems.
Anna runs into Kaiden at a party and is just overcome with horniness. Really oozing with it. They have a weird link, since being a Nephilim he can tell she is one too, but also… special. You see, Anna’s dad was a fallen angel, but her mom was a non-fallen angel! This marks her as pure and more special and such, you know the deal.
There’s only a few hundred Neph in the world, and 13 Dukes, who are demons who live on earth in human bodies and sway humans to sin. The Neph are property and used to influence humanity and serve their fathers with 100% devotion. Each Duke has a specialty sin, and that carries to the Neph, who will have a wild inclination to it- Kaiden is the son of Lust, and thus struggles to contain lusty impulses. Anna’s dad is the Duke of substance abuse, so she has a strong pull to drink and do drugs.
Kaiden explains the rules and world to Anna fairly early on- this is a long book for what it is, about 450 pages, so the whole reveal is over thankfully fast. Kaiden finds himself interested in Anna, especially because she resists his advances, and his whole thing is being so hot and sexy no woman ever turns him down. Her dad has been in jail her whole life, and he volunteers to drive her across the country to go meet him- as well as meet this nun who dies before they get there and later leaves Anna a sword in her will. Yeah.
So, the first part of the book is a roadtrip. I thought this was wrong at first, but it’s just three days of driving to cross the majority of the country- weird! Anna going in is super attracted to and into Kaiden, and he’s doing the sort of typical ‘don’t fall for me… I don’t do relationships’ thing. He is interested in boning her, and by two nights of hanging with him, she’s into that too.
However, she’s a christian who wants to wait until marriage or at least be in a committed relationship, so they don’t actually have sex. There’s a LOT of physical stuff and sexuality in this book despite no sex. Everyone’s really horny. Kaiden more than once has to pace or take a ‘cold shower’ because he’s so amped up.
They roadtrip, Anna meets her dad who is cheesy nice and redeemed and christian now despite being a Duke of Hell, and also Anna falls deeply in love with Kaiden because when she asked him to bone her, he refused at the last moment. Yawn.
So, that feels like a lot of substance for a book, but that’s like. Less than the first half? This is where the pacing begins to feel extremely uneven. This book is nine rocky months long.
Kaiden is extremely hot-cold. Despite not living that close to her, he somehow keeps bumping into her at parties. Anna meets four other nephilim kids- the twins, blake, and kopano- who latch onto her and become pals. Her dad returns, free from jail, and makes her drink an insane amount of booze to learn her limits and train her to be able to pretend to ‘work’ so the other Dukes don’t realize he’s reformed and good. There’s more tension as Kaiden, yet again, says he won’t ever see her again. There’s a party where all the dukes of hell play poker and nothing happens. There’s a new years party where Anna is being watched and has to ‘work’ by drinking a ton and getting other people to drink. There’s a meeting of ALL the Nephs and Dukes where they force a woman to eat poisoned food, Anna freaks out, angels show up, and the book ends.
There. Full plot. Uh, removing some things I want to talk about in more detail.
Hypocritical Horniness
So, as mentioned, this book OOOOOOZZZES sexuality. Not, I guess, in the fun way people usually mean when they say that? This book is more damp and gross from it. Anna is horny for Kaiden all the time, and Kaiden is literally cursed to be uncontrollably down to clown. There’s also quite a lot of mentions of other background people making out, getting topless, wearing revealing clothes, being full of lust… sex is a big deal in this book, and pretty much everywhere.
This is really ironic when you consider how christian the book is. I haven’t covered that section yet in full, but Anna- our virtuous, perfect heroine- is a virgin. And that’s not like a small detail. It’s kind of a plot point, now that I think of it. Multiple characters- Neph, and bad influence teens- mock her for being a virgin. Her female friend mourns being a virgin (just as she regrets getting an abortion). One duke can smell her virginity, and it’s important she not get too near him and reveal this ‘purity’. Kaiden’s moment of truth, literally called a ‘self sacrifice’, is when he pulls back from taking Anna’s virginity- it’s the moment she falls in love with him (and probably vise versa). Even though the Duke of Lust can smell her virginity, which would expose Kaiden about lying about taking it, Anna remains a virgin the entire book.
This weird emphasis on abstaining from sex is so at odds with a book that spends quite a lot of pages on make outs and skin-touching. It’s both looking down on characters for making out but not shaming Anna when she does it.
This duality becomes horrifyingly apparent when Kaiden reveals some… troubling backstory.
Did I Really Just Read That
So, Kaiden’s hot, right? He has sex all the time. He has powers that make him able to seduce any girl he meets, and he’s in a popular rock band. The book does explain a bit about the Bad Implications of how the Neph have to ‘work’- since he was 13 he’s been expected to inspire lust in his peers. One of the other Neph says she wasn’t a virgin at 13, it’s about implied the same goes for Kaiden. The twin Nephs are the children of the Duke of Adultery, and while they’re minors that means breaking up similar aged couples (nice save, author, on statutory rape avoidance?) but as they’ve just turned 18, they’re expected to ‘work’ with anymore.
So you know. Prostitution. It’s prostitution, guys. It’s really uncomfortable as an idea and a series subject, and it feels out of place between typical YA hormones and the degree of lust Kaiden/Anna have like his entire life hasn’t been plagued by hypersexuality and parental abuse.
Anyway, this is leading up to something Kaiden is expected to do as part of his work.
Kaiden, our male lead, swooned over for being endlessly attractive and wonderful, partakes in international sex trafficking and rapes kidnapped girls on the orders of his father. Holy. What. WHAT.
This is INSANE for what it gets- like, a couple paragraphs. It’s not like it’s a choice for him, but it’s an insane thing to bring into your plot and not properly address. And it gets worse.
So, Kaiden bravely refuses to rape a 12 year old, alright. Admittedly again this isn’t his fault, it’s an evil dad and all, but the phrasing is wild. He doesn’t say ‘the youngest ever girl I was told to do this to- it horrified me so much I had to refuse, even to my abuse dad!’. It’s instead ‘I know you are a good person and would be sad if I did 😦 wah’
Are you kidding me. He met Anna like a week ago, and she’s the only bar in his mind between ‘yeah I’ll rape a child’ and ‘oh no that’s bad’.
I hope it’s also clear this is a wildly dark subject for your YA para-ro, and also that it doesn’t get resolved at all or come up again in this book (I know it’s in the second because I read the beginning of that- and he’s just hanging and still doing this ‘work’ so… ew).
Love, luv
I’m using luv very on purpose here, because Kaiden is English, and sometimes the author suddenly remembers this and makes him use ‘luv’. It’s every so often and very out of place and obnoxious. I’m not english but I sure live here, and whenever the english characters dip back to the ‘british dialect’ it is extremely clunky and awkward.
Anyways, Kaiden isn’t so bad as a love interest barring the sex crimes. I’ve seen a lot worse. He doesn’t push Anna around physically or yell at her, or stalk her… he’s helpful at first and they have friend chats. Once she falls in love with him it’s just a constant stream of ‘we can’t be together….’ and ‘I can never truly love….’ and that’s very boring. He’s very boring overall, but not outright abusive.
The other side of the coin is Kopano, and… hm. I’ve never seen someone like Kopano in YA before as a love interest, and I say that lightly. He’s treated as a love interest, but introduced late, and never once treated equally to Kaiden. He’s OBVIOUSLY the obligatory love triangle leg, and yet the author can’t commit to writing him as if there was even a 1% odd he was an endgame ship.
Things about Kopano:
-He’s african (wow! black! Blake, another minor character is the only other non-white cast member, and I don’t think I’ve SEEN a black male love interest in YA before, at least in this decade).
-He’s super born-again christian and peaceful/doesn’t speak much.
-He’s the son of the Duke of Wrath. This…. bothers me. He refuses to work for his father anymore, but like any Neph he has an inclination towards his dad’s sin, which he has to work to resist (and if overcome with, will go over the top). Can you figure out why this bothers me? Hint: Answer: ‘large aggressive black man’ is a racial stereotype, and though Kopano is non-violent, he used to be in charge of inciting/causing rage. Plus, it leads to this idea that this deep rage is hidden under the surface- again, it just feels a liiiiittle wrong for our one black character.
I don’t think there’s much else about Kope. He doesn’t get a lot of lines, but he causes jealousy in Kaiden, and Anna has a few moments of ‘he’s so nice and would be so good for me!’. Despite being referred to and treated generally as the other side of the love triangle, even being referred to with a joke about love triangles, Kopano is not given equal treatment to Kaiden.
When Kaiden first appears, we get a detailed description of him, and many other scenes describe him and his body in a lot of detail. Kopano never gets this treatment. He has one paragraph- he has light eyes, dark skin, and short dark hair. He smells like caramel. Nice enough, but considering how Kaiden is treated, it never feels like Anna is actually attracted to or interested in Kopano. The story says once or twice she is, to build up book two where the triangle might become more clear, but the writing never reflects this.
It also, maybe unfairly, makes me think of his race again. I’ve read plenty of para-ro, and you usually see this- a bad-boy and a good-boy. Kopano is the good-boy, strong/stable/good ear/no drama. Usually they’re both described and lusted over a lot (the bad boy is hotter). I’ve never seen a para-ro book like this where the other love interest isn’t physically described (remember how horny this book generally is?). I really, actually suspect this is because he’s black. This is a book of white characters, as is para-ro (A genre thriving around the late 2000s and early 10s, pre a lot of diversity in YA movements). He’s not given half as much attention because it isn’t the convention. I’m not blaming the author of explicit racism, but I think it was likely an unconscious sort of thing.
Also a bit weird now that I think of it? This takes place in Georgia, a southern state, and no one from Anna’s high school is described as non-white to my memory.
Oh Christ!
I don’t have anything against Christian themes in books. I really don’t! I know I railed against it in They Who Fell’s last book, but that’s because spiritual stuff can easily overpower logic and good storytelling, especially when the author wants to make a point (oh, and yeah, I guess I’m not really into jesus as a physical character, as was the case with They Who Fell).
This book isn’t, perhaps, preaching, but there’s a lot of clear implied messages. There’s one scene where Anna experiences visions of all sorts of horrible things, including a group of men who beat and kill another man. In this vision the victim keeps changing- black, jewish, muslim, gay, and in a real #alllivesmatter moment, white. So, you know, Anna stands up for equal rights. Similarly, there’s a scene where her new friend talks about how she had an abortion, and worried Anna as a christian would hate her for that, and how protestors yelled at her for it.
So the book isn’t explicitly against liberal thought, which is nice. I was getting worried when abortion came up we were going to hit that point. Especially since Anna, early on, notes she has full memories from being in the womb. Though Veronica isn’t shamed for having an abortion (Anna supports her), it’s also clear Veronica didn’t want the abortion (her dad made her do it). She mourns the child who would have been five months, just as she misses her virginity.
So, without being anti-abortion, the book is pretty heavily hinting some pro-life themes. She’s not evil for having an abortion… but mostly because she didn’t choose to have it, her mean dad did.
Complaining about christian themes in an angel/demon book is maybe funny, but please remember the insane stuff I’ve already covered about this book! Strong moral messages feel so out of whack with scenes of heavy make-outs and tit-touching and underage drinking. Anna is a devout Christian (she quotes the bible at least once) who uses capitalized pronouns for referring to god and is able to contend with going to Hell because she knows as long as she’s good, the last judgement will free her.
I just found it a bit much.
Sexism
I mean, it’s a 2000s para-ro, so of course there’s sexism. I just wanted to note this book is very much not free of it. Anna in the first chapter is looking down on two girls for wearing low cut shirts and having big boobs. She in generally spends a lot of time noting low cut and exposed outfits. She’s very dismissive of party girls and everything about them, really judgmental and occasionally jealous.
The weird emphasis on sex and gender is also constantly there. Girl Nephs, for example, are more ‘sensitive’ than male ones- Anna can sense people with genetic family histories of drug/drink addiction, the adultury twins can see bonds between people. You know… because… women…?
Women also always die giving birth to Neph children, so it’s a real dead mom society. This is because the miracle of birth is so powerful the human body can only deliver a human soul, and Nephs are too strong (killing her instantly). Which, the more you think about it, makes no sense. I mean she got pregnant in the first place. She grew this baby for nine months, and only on leaving the womb does it kill her? What if you deliver via c-section? Can you abort a Neph??
This also leads to a weird revelation I JUST remembered, which is that all the Neph are sterilized from a young age. Like 13. So Anna is also the only one who could ever get pregnant. (She’s shocked and hurt by this idea, because of course her only dream in life was to get married and have a large family).
There’s also only male demons/Dukes- well, there’s Jezebel (the liar), and that’s it. Despite the fact angels are confirmed genderless while in Heaven (demon dad says so), Anna always calls and describes them as male/him. Despite being genderless, demon dad also tells his story of life in heaven referring to angels with pronouns generally being male, even if this was in theory pre-gender.
Anna doesn’t do jack, as mentioned. There’s not exactly a lot of action, but Anna rarely stands up for herself and never takes the lead or drives the story. Most of the time it’s other people’s ideas or invitations she follows along with, or is forced to follow. She has one action bit where she runs for a half page, and then is caught.
Anna also doesn’t really have any personality. It’s a stretch to say any of the characters do beyond the broad, cartoon-like Dukes, but I can’t name a single hobby about Anna. I guess she likes mexican food. She doesn’t have any ambition or goals beyond this, or real drive in life.
And SHE’S the chosen one?
Angels
I love angels! Let’s angel review, because in a true DUES EX, angels show up and save Anna at the end of the book from being beaten/killed. She’s in this big meeting of the Dukes, she stupidly blurts out a ‘no!’ about a girl about to get killed, and is dragged up to the stage. Suddenly…. uh……. a spotlight comes on and an army of warrior angels show up.
They just kind of stare the demons down and say ANNA DOES NOT DIE NOW. Like, obviously Anna is key to the grand plan, but talk about showing your hand! You’re screwed in keeping the fact she’s a special angel-blessing secret when a bunch of angels come to save her… in front of, all the demons, and also lucifer’s messenger (**he’s trapped in the pit).
The angels wear armor and have long flowing hair.
Boring.
Anything good
- Anna’s dad is a very boring good guy instead of a cool demon when we first meet him, but after that he’s pretending to be a proper Duke, and is thus cool. He looks insane (bald head, long black goatee) and gives her a secret message in a bag of cocaine. He gets some good lines and terrifies all the Neph into shutting up and being petty teens.
- The Dukes in general are insane and enjoyable for it.
Crow Defeats Books 