Review: Pretty When She Dies by Rhiannon Frater

Title: Pretty When She Dies
Author: Rhiannon Frater
Series: Pretty Death #1
Pages: 384
Publisher: CreateSpace
Genre: Paranormal
Source: Received from Agent for Review

Goodreads Description:

Amaliya wakes under the forest floor, disoriented, famished and confused. She digs out of the shallow grave and realizes she is hungry in a new, horrific, unimaginable way. Sating her great hunger, she discovers that she is now a vampire, the bloodthirsty creature of legend. She has no choice but to flee from her old life and travels across Texas hoping to escape her creator.

My Review:
I probably shouldn't be posting my review of this book before the discussion group is done with it, but I finished this book yesterday and wanted to make sure that all of my thoughts stayed in my head. If I waited until the end of the tour to write the review I would probably lose some random bits of info and I would hate that.

*Note so I am going to be switching up my reviews a little bit. I tend to write long and detailed reviews, but some followers have complained about length...well..okay...to make things a bit easier for those of you who don't like to read...I will write a few reviews that aren't in paragraph form, and just kind of bop around and hit some of the highlights. I will still do my traditional reviews in most cases, but also throw in these "pop-reviews" to mix it up. cool? cool.*

Can you say awesomesauce?? You better, because this book kicks major vampire ass! First of all...you need to study the cover if you haven't already. SO bad ass! The title, the bloody vampire mouth...pure fabulousness! If I wasn't already participating in the read-a-long, the cover would have definitely influenced me to buy it.

Okay...the awakening scene. TOTALLY perfect. I don't think I've ever read a more convincing and terrifying "rising" scene in a vampire book. Sure there is a lot of movies that show the scene, but in books it's more about the love and the blood than the actual: this is how I crawled my way out of my grave, stumbled into some random frat kids, drank all of their blood while they had an orgy, then slept with my creator in a bed soaked in my victims blood. like I said...Holy awesomesauce! Here's a quote from Amal herself when she wakes up and is trying to figure out what's wrong with her.

“She parked near the fence and took a deep breath. Curious, she did it again, feeling her lungs expand, then contract. She sat in silence, letting her body decide what to do next. Her lungs stayed still, but she didn't feel as though she was suffocating. “Yep. Dead,” she whispered.”

Amal is a really clear headed baby vamp. She had the one mistake of the blood orgy, then got her crap together. I'm pretty sure that If I had the god-awful family she does I would have definitely had a "relapse" and totally annihilated my skanky, dirty, mean family if they had done to me what they did to her. I liked how strong she is. She was strong as a human, having to deal with cancer and death at an early age, but then when she dies she doesn't lose those qualities and I thought that was really great. Amal has got her own personality. She's a metal-head, but is sweet and naive, and also a killer vampire. It's a really interesting mixture and she really grew on me.

The other characters are great as well. Amaliya's grandmother and cousin were two of my favorites. Innocente reminds me of a Mexican Grandma Mazur from the Stephanie Plum books. She kicks ass and isn't afraid to one up people who are a quarter of her age if it means saving her granddaughter. Samantha and Jeff add dashes of humor and provide the comedic relief for what could have been a very dark and angsty book. They are kind of complicated, and I wasn't sure whether or not to like them, but after the final scene I am sure that they will be a fun and awesome part of the books in the future and I can't wait to see what comes next.

Best Quote:

"What do you privately consult about?”
Haunted houses, exorcisms, that sort of thing,” he answered.
Wow. You're like-

Don't say it.

Giles from Buffy.

He rolled his eyes. “If I had a quarter for every time someone said
that. "

I give Pretty When She Dies 4 Keys out of 5. I'm really glad I decided to participate in the read-a-long of this book. Sometimes I rush through books and don't let a lot of stuff sink in or I don't stop and think about how awesome something is. The discussion questions really make me think, and also kind of make me feel more for Amaliya than I think I would have if I just read the series straight through. I am really excited for the next book in the series Pretty When She Kills to be released. I love Rhiannon Frater and am SO happy that I have 5 books of hers to console myself with while I wait.

So what do you think of my new, less structured style of blogging? Do you like it? Is it easier to read or more annoying? Let me know! I'm not going to totally switch to one or the other, but if you have an opinion let me know so I give my readers what they want!