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A review by difficultwomanreads
Sweetly by Jackson Pearce
4.0
From now on (or until I get bored with this format), I'm going to try to say five things about a book in each review. Then I'll try to expand upon those five things. Here goes nothing.
1. Sweetly is better than its predecessor, Sisters Red.
2. It made me want to make candy or baked goods like nothing else.
3. Though I appreciated the emphasis on the brother-sister relationship (and a healthy one at that!) over romance, it could have been done better.
4. Despite the progress she made in this novel, Jackson Pearce still kind of needs to work on the character development thing.
5. There's an amazing change of pace in this novel--here's a fairy tale that's actually creepy-crawly and kind of brutal, in a more authentic way than the first installment in this "series" (if you can call it that, as Sweetly really stands on its own).
1.) It's been a long time since I read Sisters Red and it didn't leave me in a hurry to get to Sweetly. I really wanted to like Jackson Pearce's style but As You Wish, which I BARELY got through didn't help either. Admittedly, I'm really picky when it comes to fairy tale retellings, and Little Red Riding Hood is my favorite fairy tale of them all. Hansel and Gretel is a little less important to me, but I still approached this book with a little bit of trepidation.
I couldn't put it down! It was fast-paced and entertaining and a little disturbing. The writing was tighter, the dialogue more mature and realistic. (I remember that being a problem with Sisters Red.) Furthermore, though there was romance and I wouldn't have minded a little more, it wasn't suffocating the way it had been in Pearce's other works. And it felt real, for that matter. No desperate declarations of love after a little dating; no sudden desire to drop everything for this one person. Just enough to satisfy my romance-loving heart without taking away from a story that really wasn't about romantic love.
2.) Okay, so does Jackson Pearce have a cookbook on the way? Because if not she should. I really need Sophia's recipes. The descriptions in this novel were delicious, from the candies to the woods to the gore. (And yes, there is a little of that.) I wanted to pluck the candy off the pages and pop them into my mouth. I wanted to yell at Gretchen to get the hell out of those woods. And yes, I cringed a little at the image of bones snapping and blood gushing.
The setting was well-done too. My hometown is Charleston, SC, which is basically at Folly Beach. (Charlestonians consider them one and the same at least.) I grew up going to Folly Beach whenever possible, so seeing it get a shout-out (though it's nothing like the brochure description) was cool. I also spent a lot of time in towns like Live Oak. Little things like judgey townspeople and the Piggly Wiggly, which is real, were great to read about.
3.) Yes, I can indeed appreciate healthy family relationships. (Though, obviously, Ansel and Gretchen's family wasn't all that healthy as a whole.) Ansel and Gretchen were downright adorable siblings and my heart warmed a little every time they spent time together and he acted like a protective big brother.
Which, all intentions aside, wasn't enough. Though I was happy that Gretchen's relationship with Ansel was more important than her relationship with her love interest, I think Pearce could have taken better advantage of the original fairy tale. Ansel faded into the background at one point, which was a shame as I found him very interesting and also kinda hot. I got that his relationship with Sophia was important, but it seemed to swallow him up a bit. Not a huge problem, but it did bug me a tiny bit.
4.) Yes, Pearce still needs to work on the character development thing. Although I appreciated her attempts with Sophia, she still seemed a little inauthentic, and as previously mentioned, Ansel would have benefited from more pagetime. So would Samuel, another important supporting character.
That said, I felt like Gretchen seemed more like a real person than the leads of Jackson's previous novels. I understood her more. She seemed like someone you could actually meet. So when all was said and done, I think Pearce is growing as a writer in that regard, and that's very encouraging.
5.) I don't mind super romantic, dreamy fairy tale retellings. I love them. But it was still nice to see a fairy tale that's more fast-paced and puts an emphasis on the darkness. I think Pearce could have gone even darker, to be honest, but she still didn't pull any punches with this one.
It's sort of like Sisters Red in that regard. However, Sweetly really left me excited for the next book, and how nice is that? I wanted to like Pearce's first Fairy Tale book so badly, and it killed me when I didn't. So it was great to read a spin-off that not only stood on its own, but left me wanting more.
1. Sweetly is better than its predecessor, Sisters Red.
2. It made me want to make candy or baked goods like nothing else.
3. Though I appreciated the emphasis on the brother-sister relationship (and a healthy one at that!) over romance, it could have been done better.
4. Despite the progress she made in this novel, Jackson Pearce still kind of needs to work on the character development thing.
5. There's an amazing change of pace in this novel--here's a fairy tale that's actually creepy-crawly and kind of brutal, in a more authentic way than the first installment in this "series" (if you can call it that, as Sweetly really stands on its own).
1.) It's been a long time since I read Sisters Red and it didn't leave me in a hurry to get to Sweetly. I really wanted to like Jackson Pearce's style but As You Wish, which I BARELY got through didn't help either. Admittedly, I'm really picky when it comes to fairy tale retellings, and Little Red Riding Hood is my favorite fairy tale of them all. Hansel and Gretel is a little less important to me, but I still approached this book with a little bit of trepidation.
I couldn't put it down! It was fast-paced and entertaining and a little disturbing. The writing was tighter, the dialogue more mature and realistic. (I remember that being a problem with Sisters Red.) Furthermore, though there was romance and I wouldn't have minded a little more, it wasn't suffocating the way it had been in Pearce's other works. And it felt real, for that matter. No desperate declarations of love after a little dating; no sudden desire to drop everything for this one person. Just enough to satisfy my romance-loving heart without taking away from a story that really wasn't about romantic love.
2.) Okay, so does Jackson Pearce have a cookbook on the way? Because if not she should. I really need Sophia's recipes. The descriptions in this novel were delicious, from the candies to the woods to the gore. (And yes, there is a little of that.) I wanted to pluck the candy off the pages and pop them into my mouth. I wanted to yell at Gretchen to get the hell out of those woods. And yes, I cringed a little at the image of bones snapping and blood gushing.
The setting was well-done too. My hometown is Charleston, SC, which is basically at Folly Beach. (Charlestonians consider them one and the same at least.) I grew up going to Folly Beach whenever possible, so seeing it get a shout-out (though it's nothing like the brochure description) was cool. I also spent a lot of time in towns like Live Oak. Little things like judgey townspeople and the Piggly Wiggly, which is real, were great to read about.
3.) Yes, I can indeed appreciate healthy family relationships. (Though, obviously, Ansel and Gretchen's family wasn't all that healthy as a whole.) Ansel and Gretchen were downright adorable siblings and my heart warmed a little every time they spent time together and he acted like a protective big brother.
Which, all intentions aside, wasn't enough. Though I was happy that Gretchen's relationship with Ansel was more important than her relationship with her love interest, I think Pearce could have taken better advantage of the original fairy tale. Ansel faded into the background at one point, which was a shame as I found him very interesting and also kinda hot. I got that his relationship with Sophia was important, but it seemed to swallow him up a bit. Not a huge problem, but it did bug me a tiny bit.
4.) Yes, Pearce still needs to work on the character development thing. Although I appreciated her attempts with Sophia, she still seemed a little inauthentic, and as previously mentioned, Ansel would have benefited from more pagetime. So would Samuel, another important supporting character.
That said, I felt like Gretchen seemed more like a real person than the leads of Jackson's previous novels. I understood her more. She seemed like someone you could actually meet. So when all was said and done, I think Pearce is growing as a writer in that regard, and that's very encouraging.
5.) I don't mind super romantic, dreamy fairy tale retellings. I love them. But it was still nice to see a fairy tale that's more fast-paced and puts an emphasis on the darkness. I think Pearce could have gone even darker, to be honest, but she still didn't pull any punches with this one.
It's sort of like Sisters Red in that regard. However, Sweetly really left me excited for the next book, and how nice is that? I wanted to like Pearce's first Fairy Tale book so badly, and it killed me when I didn't. So it was great to read a spin-off that not only stood on its own, but left me wanting more.