**REVIEW** The Blessed by Tonya Hurley

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.

Release Date:  September 25, 2012

Published By: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Review Copy: Hardcover 416 pages

Review 

I am really not sure where to start with this review.  Did I love it? No.  Did I hate it?  No.  Basically I remain indifferent.  There is so much potential but I can't tell if it fell short or my periods of confusion ruined it for me.  Trust me I was more than excited for this one, more than I have been for a book in awhile, just the sight of the book got me excited.  Maybe it's my lack of true knowledge on the saints these girls were named after that was the problem or it could have been the abstract way that the story was presented.  I just felt lost at times and wish that I hadn't.

  The story flips around from girl to girl so you get a glance at each of their lives.  Lucy the wild rich girl that would say or do anything to stay at the top, Cecilia (CeCe) the wild child run away that reaches for he dream of being a noticed singer and Agnes the one hat loves with all her heart every time without exception.  The girls each unique in their own way had a common link: death. One drowned in a puddle, one overdosed and the other committed suicide. They don't know this and when they meet don't seem to care for one another, rather than Agnes who seems indifferent to the others.  Being stuck with each other though does force them to try and accept each other, even if they don't know why they should.

  The girls themselves were interesting and individual.  There was no mistaking one for another, yet sometimes their stories just blurred together.  When it cam to Agnes I found myself getting frequently  frustrated and thought of her as weak.  I know loving isn't a weakness but the fact that she could be down on herself and attempt to take her own life over a cheater drove me.  She wasn't really that girl in the end though.   Out of the three I think I ended up understand Agnes the best and accepted the choices she made but it took awhile.  CeCe never really affected me but I loved the strength in her character.  She was not afraid to go after what she wanted.  Although when she didn't get it her snark went through the roof!  This was fun at times by others I wanted to tell her to take a breath.  Lucy was kind of the middle girl, not weak but not strong either.  Her entire being was about status so she did what she had to do.

  The amount of confusion and frustration that had built up inside of me by the end of this one is undeniable.  The saddest part?  I will probably read the next one.  Despite all it's flaws and jumping POV's there was a serious amount of action in the end and even a little sacrifice  so I have this idea in my head that it's all going to get better.  Not to mention if book two has a cover anywhere as attractive as this one I would have a hard time saying no to it.   I know this is a relatively short review but as I said to start I am kind of indifferent and kind if want some more of you to read it to see if maybe there was something fundamental that I missed.

Quotes

"What is this teen night?" Dr. Moss asked rhetorically as her prepped the oral charcoal."No, just Saturday night in Brooklyn," the nurse responded.  "Mondays are heart attacks..."

The suggestion of violence, disruption, thinly veiled and always present.She wasn't afraid to show her lady balls.To be hard.To be intimidating.The warrior queen of her own private dystopia.

"This is an urgent matter.  A public-safety issue.  Is your department in the habit of letting killers run wild?  New York's Finest, indeed."

"How did you survive the tornado up here?" she asked but what she really wanted to know was How did you survive without me?"Cockroaches and junkies," he said in his slurry, crackled voice, "always survive."