A review by yaoipaddle
A Venom Dark and Sweet by Judy I. Lin

adventurous emotional mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I did not like this as much as the first book. Sorry! Minor spoilers in review, major ones hidden.

It had a very similar problem to the first book where the beginning and middle drag on and the end is SUPER fast paced and action packed.

For characters, I found Ning to be less likeable than in the first book. Maybe because she feels very repetitive and single minded in everything she does here. She also has a lot of rage that comes quite suddenly and remains for a lot of the book. I just didn't like her as much because of it. The very frequent moments where she was pining after Kang also annoyed me.
I also found this concept of her wanting to give in to the serpent's demands for power just shoehorned in for "tension"


What I did like was the magic and the growth of her powers. I think Lin did a wonderful job creating the magic system in the first book and it does not disappoint in the second either. I think the ways in which it was expanded were nice.

Shu was a lot more likeable than I thought
But she is basically thrown off and not mentioned in the last parts of the book. Very lame!
and Zhen and Ruyi were great too. I wish there was more of them.

I liked the chapters from Kang's point of view especially by the middle. They kept me reading despite the lull in Ning's storyline. The mystery in them was quite interesting even though some of the parts felt like they were forgotten by the end of the story. :/

Overall I felt let down by the book because the pacing was always either too slow or too rushed. It made the story a drag to read through and I forced myself to push through the middle.
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