ARC Review: The Blessed by Tonya Hurley

Publisher:  Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Publication Date:  September 25th, 2012

From the author of the New York Times bestselling ghostgirl series, the start to a captivating and haunting teen trilogy about three girls who become entangled with an enigmatic boy—a boy who believes he is a saint.What if martyrs and saints lived among us? And what if you were told you were one of them?

     Meet Agnes, Cecilia, and Lucy. Three lost girls, each searching for something. But what they find is Beyond Belief.

(Courtesy of Goodreads)

**Thank you to Southern ARC Tours for the opportunity to read and review this book!!**

I've been trying to write this review for a few weeks, but just keep coming up with nothing. This is going to be a very short review, because honestly, I still have nothing.  You see, I really didn't like The Blessed.  I like the idea of it; the plotline COULD be good, but the execution just didn't work for me, and it's been difficult for me to pinpoint why.  The writing was fine.  The story was okay, and when it was going well, I was sucked in.  Unfortunately, those times were too few and far between.  I was looking back on my notes I took while reading this, and one thing it wrote jumped out at me... "Reads like an acid trip.  Disjointed. Too many snippets.  Jumps around too much.  Way too many lost pieces of time."  That pretty much sums up my feelings toward this book.  The characters were really difficult to follow, the story went everywhere and nowhere at once, and I never really felt like I knew what was going on. In the end, it all comes together some, but it took WAY too long to get there.  I think 100 pages could have easily been shaved off of this book and it wouldn't have lost a thing.  In fact, I think it may have been better if that had happened.  Don't get me wrong, I think this book will appeal to some, but with hindsight being 20/20, I would have skipped it.

My Rating: ★ ★ ½ 

Grade Level Recommendation:  There is some mature content.  There is some sexual content, drug abuse, language, and violence.  I would say this is for ages 14 and up (9th grade+).

**Don't forget to enter my GIVEAWAY for a SIGNED copy of Lauren Oliver's fabulous new book, THE SPINDLERS!  Click HERE to enter!  US/CAN.  Ends 10/20/2012.**