Pretty Dark Nothing by Heather L. Reid

Title: Pretty Dark Nothing
Author: Heather L. Reid
Publisher: Month9Books
Release Date: April 23, 2013

Goodreads Summary

It’s been twenty three days since Quinn has slept for more than minutes at a time. Demons have invaded her dreams, stalking her, and whispering of her death. The lack of sleep and crippling fear are ruining her life. Energy drinks and caffeine pills don’t make a dent. When Quinn dozes off in the school hallway, Aaron, an amnesiac with a psychic ability, accidentally enters her nightmare. The demons are determined to keep them apart, and Aaron from discovering the secret locked away in his memory. Together, they could banish the darkness back to the underworld for good. That is, unless the demons kill them first.

This book had the potential to be great but it had Too. Much. Drama. The opening scene to the book was perfect, you could tell from the way the author wrote that she was talented. The idea was great, so much could have been done with it but the author focused on teen drama.

This book had dual narration and it did work out rather well in this case except that Aaron came off as slightly creepy although I think that was the point because Aaron goes on to admit that his obsession was becoming unhealthy. At first I was confused by why he was so attracted to Quinn. She wasn’t particularly special or anything. She mostly annoyed the hell out of me but we find out later on why.

I’ve never mentioned this before in my review but I am reaching my breaking point so I have to mention it. WHY IS EVERYONE ALWAYS CUTE?  (this goes out for most YA books in general) I don’t get it. Why does the author focus on how hot the person is when she introduces a character? It really annoyed me. I found myself rolling my eyes when the author described (from Quinn’s POV) how cute Aaron was, same goes for when she was describing how hot Quinn was. How come when reading from Quinn’s POV no one mentions how ‘good looking’ Quinn is?

Quinn started off as an interesting character but then she just became worse. She was clearly hung up on her ex when it should have been obvious she needed to move on. She also feels jealous when Aaron is with another girl even though she keeps on pushing him away. For christs sake don’t do that. Also, my god she was insecure. I guess this is justified because most of the guys in her life suck. They messed with her. Half the time though I resisted the urge to scream at Quinn, she was being haunted by demons but she was so focused on guys. This pissed me off to no ends. She seemed so weak to me. I mean I never really saw her try to resist the demons. She never tried to tell anyone anything; I hate it when characters keep everything to themselves without reason. Yes the demons told her not to but really, it was obvious that the demons were messing with her but she never saw it, she believe everything they told her. It was so easy to manipulate her. I would have liked to see a real struggle.

Jeff was clearly a douche bag. I mean he seemed nice but it looked like he was playing the two girls. I never found out whether his feelings were genuine or not. He and Quinn used to be best friends before they started dating so I hated that he just cheated on her and never gave her a proper explanation. I really hope we get some explanation in the sequel about this Jeff character because he was slightly fishy.

Aaron was a good character. I believe he was my favorite. It was easier to relate to him. He clearly hates Quinn for how she treats him but he still goes back to help her because he wouldn’t forgive himself otherwise. A lot of shit has happened to him and really you can feel his pain. Same goes for Quinn of course but I didn’t really like Quinn so I wasn’t able to sympathize with her. Plus I liked how he was honest. He told people stuff, maybe not all of it but he didn’t just keep it all to himself and he did tell Quinn the whole truth.

There was quite a bit of cheese in the book starting with the Aaron swooping her into his arms scene. I cringed there.

This book did have good best friends which I appreciate. In most books they are either kind of stupid or they are mostly absent. Reese was always trying to get Quinn back on track and telling her it was time to move on. I really liked how she was there for her even though Quinn did some stupid things. It didn’t matter to Reese because they were best friends and they needed to be there for each other no matter what. Same goes for Marcus. I really liked Marcus. He was hilarious.

There were a couple of creepy awesome scenes but alas they were outweighed by the drama. There was this one scene near the end that was just pathetic. I started laughing because I couldn’t believe it.

I was going to give this book a 2 but the ending. The ending was just awesome and now I really would like to read the sequel. The ending cannot make up for the other shit I had to endure in this book but I get the feeling the next book will be a lot better. The ending explained a lot of things and well it sucks I have to wait a year for the sequel.