"Sweet Venom" by Tera Lynn Childs

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 must admit that after having read a few other YA books that reworked Greek mythology this year I was a bit hesitant to read this, primarily because every single one of the other modern-day Greek mythology books that I had read didn't live up to my expectations- I was expecting to be blown away with their creativity, characters, and the likes of, and I wasn't and therefore I assumed that that would also be the case with this book. But it wasn't whatsoever. This book, unlike those others, was really creative, had characters with personalities, and was a book that I literally couldn't put down (while those other books? In all honesty I struggled to finish them).

Each of the girls in the book were so well defined- while reading the book you definitely notice a difference in their voices, Greer had a more sophisticated and refined way of speaking, Grace a more innocent and positive voice, while Gretchen obviously had the 'bad-ass'/ tell-it-like-it-is vibe going on and as such, it was easy to relate to them/ ingrain yourself into their lives. Furthermore, the boys of the book were also extremely well defined and were swoon-worthy- I seriously cannot chose a favourite between Milo, Nick, and Thane!

However, I personally wasn't entirely satisfied with the book. I felt that the ending of the book was somewhat reminiscent of Sophie Jordan's "Firelight"- that the book really ended at the most action-packed/ critical moment. It didn't feel like we got an entire story- with a beginning, middle, and end.

All in all, this book and its characters are definitely going to stick with me for quite some time and despite my complaints, I am excited to see what happens in book 2! Furthermore, after having read this book I now wanna go check out Tera Lynn's other series' "Forgive My Fins", "Oh.My.Gods", and "City Chicks"!

Rating: 3/5

I received this book from the publisher to read and honestly review. I was not compensated in any way for said review.

Special thanks to HarperCollins Canada and Shannon!