As I start many book reviews, I’d seen quite a lot of good things about Sweet Pea on my Bookstagram before I picked it up with some even stating it’s their favourite book series. Therefore when it came on offer on Kindle and was a cheap Audible buy, I had to pick it up!
Sweet Pea by C.J. Skuse is a book about a psychopath who lives a normal life alongside her murderous other life. We follow Rhiannon as she goes about her everyday duties via the entries of her diary.
Plot – 3.5/5
Rhiannon seems like a very regular person to most people – she may be a little odd, but no more so than everybody these days. However, little does everybody know but Rhiannon has a dark secret that nobody knows about – she absolutely loves killing people.
It all starts off fairly smoothly as Rhiannon goes about her regular life, despising people but putting on just enough of an act to put everybody off. However, things start to slip and things start to go wrong just a little bit. The more you read, the more things start to get a little out of hand for Rhiannon and her regular life.
I have to admit, despite the unique angle this book takes and some of the “oh no” moments you’ll read – this plot didn’t quite grab me like I thought it would. I was constantly waiting for a plot twist or something clever to happen, but it didn’t, it just kept ticking over like a regular life. With these sorts of books, I feel like there needs to be a twist to properly grab my attention – if there isn’t, I finish feeling a little underwhelmed.
Characters – 4.5/5
Rhiannon is great! She’s got a very dark and twisted sense of humour. A lot of things she’s said aren’t particularly 2022 and she’s not something who’s afraid to express her brutal, honest opinion that I imagine many people reading will secretly agree with.
Throughout the book, her telling of her life is absolutely jam-packed with personality. She is not afraid to give her opinion, she’s not afraid to let you know how she feels about people. At the start of most of the chapters, written as dates for diary entries, she lists people she wants to kill that day which is both hilarious and often very relatable (except actually wanting to kill them…)
The other characters in the book are hard to define – they’re all described by Rhiannon and therefore their personalities are that of how she describes them. This book is really all about Rhiannon – everyone else around her actually seems quite nice but this doesn’t stop that from annoying Rhiannon.
Summary – 4/5
This book will undoubtedly make you laugh out loud – it may also make you feel quite uncomfortable at times. Fair play to Skuse for writing a very controversial book that includes some genuinely dark and, at times, uncomfortable scenes to read. Skuse has written an oddly-relatable serial killer here too in Rhiannon. Excluding the actual killing part, Rhiannon has a lot of opinions that I think a lot of people could relate to and her thoughts on certain people could well be tapping into very similar darker thoughts of those who read the books.
I was waiting for a twist or something really exciting to happen but it never did. However, in hindsight the story was enjoyable and the main character was brilliant, so I look forward to reading the sequels.
