Pretty in Black by Rae Hachton

Title: Pretty in Black
Author: Rae Hachton
Category: Fiction, Young Adult, Paranormal Romance
Publication Date: October 11, 2011
Publisher: Teen Pulse

Some Things are Pretty. Some Things are Black. Love is both.

[Ellie Piper]

She wanted to die. He arose from the grave. He was sent to kill her. She was trained to kill those of his kind. But fate had other plans. He searched for 119 years to find her. & There's no way in hell he's letting her go. Dead or Alive. They're fated.

[Marcus Marble]

How far would you go to be with the one you love? Would you die for her? Would you kill for her? What if the only reason you're still alive is because of her? What if the reason you came back from the dead, was to be with her? But what if your job was to kill her, but you fell in love instead? And now you're being hunted by your own kind?

Destroy? Or be Destroyed?

GoodReads

I initally accepted this book as part as a Blog Tour. I admit, I fell for the pretty cover. This is definitely one case where I should not have judged a book by its cover. Well, okay, I also judged it by its synopsis, so I don't feel too bad now. I mean, it's a pretty interesting synopsis: death, mystery, forbidden love, suspense. These are all great elements I look for when deciding on a book to read.

Unfortunately, I only made it to page 21 in Pretty in Black before trying to decide whether I should laugh or cry because it is. just. that. bad.

To be completely honest, I am shocked that this is not a self-pub, as it has all of the cringe-worthy qualities of the stereotype: run-on and fragment sentences, poor grammar, typos, one-dimensional characters, stilted dialogue, a corny plot, and - should I go on? I guess to be completely fair, there are probably traditionally published books that have the aforementioned issues, but... I haven't run into one lately. Maybe I'm spoiled by my recent run-ins with wonderful self-pubs (like Entangled and Whisper Walker) as well as fabulous trad-pubs (like Cinder and Born Wicked), but I find that I have little patience for crap books.

I won't write any commentary on the first 21 pages, as I think my summary above covers it. I don't recommend this book to anyone. Since writing this review I have withdrawn from the Blog Tour.