Prologues - love 'em or hate 'em?

What is it about prologues?Do you love or hate them? Dad’s Red Dress, my first published novel this year, had a prologue I loved. I only pulled it years after my first draft. It’s not in the finished book but I had a sneaky idea I might be able to squeeze it into the sequel. Now I’m working on that, I don’t think there’s any place for it.

Yet it gave my book its name. It said so much about the tone of the book and the central character and her dilemma and I still love that little short page. (I’ve attached it at the end so you can make up your own mind.)

So what about the novel I’m finishing now, The Angelica Touch? It had a prologue too but I completely forgot about it until I came upon an older draft. 

Back in 2012, I set up a First Chapters Club for writers to share chapters and everyone there loved my prologue. One said they wept with laughter. So why isn’t it in this draft? 

I’m not entirely sure but the event it describes was peeled out only in this draft, when an editor suggested it was too bizarre, especially as it contained on colourful character that never reappeared in the story.

Only now I'm torn. I’m gathering in feedback from beta readers, getting ready to do a final (is it ever a final?) edit and I’m feeling a little homesick for it. So I'm curious, what do other writers and readers think about prologues?

Prologue for Dad’sRed Dress

“Red or pink?”

Hi. My name is Jessie. My Dad is standing in front of me asking me to help him choose between two dresses. “Red.” It’s a no-brainer. And yes, my Dad.

 “Sure?”

 “Absolutely. It hides your knees.”

“What’s wrong with my knees?!”

Gramma says knees are the ugliest part of the human body, but Gaffa says that someone somewhere probably thinks knees are downright gorgeous. I’m not sure. You couldn’t call Dad’s knees gorgeous. Not even if you were, well, desperate and very, VERY short sighted.

And a bit crazy.

But I’m in one of my ‘nothing bothers me’ moods so I give him a hug and say, “Nothing. You have lovely knees.”

They’re very easily pleased, Dads. Give them a hug and they’ll believe anything. Don’t get me wrong – ‘cos people often do; it’s something about being nearly thirteen that makes everyone get you wrong - I love my Dad to bits. But sometimes when the ‘bits’ are heels as tall as well the tallest thing I can’t think of right now, then the ‘bits’ are a bit confusing.

“Red it is, so. Scarlett Johannson eat your heart out,” he says, whoever she is.

Or he.

You can’t be sure with parents.

And then he whips out two pairs of shoes. “Pumps or heels?”