Review ~ Pretty Dark Nothing - Heather L Reid (ARC)

ARC received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Expected Release Date: 23RD April 2013
Publisher: Month9Books

Description
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.

My Opinion - be warned this review may be a tiny bit ranty (not my normal style as I like to try and find some positives but this book really did irritate me)

Initially it was the cover that drew me to this book, it's beautiful and once I read the description it intrigued me into requesting this book. It sounded like it would be a dark, action packed book that would be a gripping read and right up my alley. However this book was more like broken-hearted teen who was just messed up than what the description suggested and quite frankly it was a big disappointment.

When I started reading it did hook my interest. The fact that Quinn hasn't slept for 23 days and is seeing demons started the book of nicely and I thought it would set itself up for some really exciting action. However once I got three chapters in the book just didn't seem to go anywhere. Instead of any action all you got was Quinn being frightened over the demons but not doing anything about it, pining over Jeff (her ex) and then another pov from Aaron who was pining over Quinn. I did stick with this book though as I've read novels that start like that before and normally the character grows out of it. Unfortunately this was not the case with Quinn, if anything she got worse! I mean seriously? It gets to the point where the reader is done feeling sympathy for the character and it just becomes plain irritating. There needs to be something else to the story.

Throughout the whole book there was very little character development and it made the writing incredibly annoying to read. The best part was when she hooked up with Aaron finally and they started sharing secrets. I thought it would be the turning point in the book and from there get better and we would see Quinn's character grow, but no...a few pages later it was back to "I love Jeff, no Aaron, no Jeff, argh why don't these demons leave me alone!" And by that point I just wanted to scream at her. 

There was practically no action in this book which really confused me. Where was all the fighting demons and banishing them back to the underworld that was written about in the description??? It was seriously misleading. Not only that, one of the most annoying things about this book is that you never get an explanation for anything! The demons Quinn hear - I have no idea what they are, what their purpose is or what they want. They were just voices that made Quinn's internal monologue unbearable at times and forced me to skip long sections as it sounded like an over dramatic teenager. 

As well as this the ending confused me a lot. What happened to Quinn was predictable but the rest of what happened just lost me. There were name changes, new paranormal elements involved and the secret that's been hidden from Aaron, well it's never really explained so you can understand it, so be prepared to be confused if you read this book...

The ending seemed like where the paranormal story should begin but it ended abruptly with no natural resolve. The rest of the book was like a bad contemporary. It seems to me the author couldn't decide what she wanted this book to be; a contemporary teen drama picking up on issues like self harming, drugs, and cheating or a paranormal book and for me the way in which it was written did not link the two together well at all. There wasn't enough detail in either genre to make it one or the other or satisfy the reader. I don't know if there is going to be a sequel but if there is I can't imagine what the author is going to do with this book next. Maybe it will go into more paranormal aspects promised in the description but for me that should have been the main focus of this book. 

Overall this book was a major disappointment and I feel it could have been so much more. The lack of detail and explanations left me confused a lot of the time and the characters never really grew or developed. I was either distant or annoyed by them and their internal monologues which were just whiny. There was hardly any action and I feel the description although intriguing is very misleading as it's not really what happens.  As it stands at the moment the title sums this book up pretty well it was definitely a big 'dark nothing' and I wouldn't recommend it to paranormal lovers. Maybe of you like teen dramas but for me this book is too undecided on what it wants to be.

Rating- Maybe a 1.5 at a push