Tori's Review: Precious Blood (The Blessed #1) by Tonya Hurley

Precious Blood by Tonya Hurley
Series: The Blessed #1
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Fantasy
Rating: ★★
Pages: 405
Published by Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers on June 25 2012
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Three lost girls, each searching for something. But what they find is beyond belief.

Lucy, Cecilia, and Agnes find themselves in the emergency room of a Brooklyn hospital at their lowest points. All are rebels running from their lives and themselves, plagued by broken hearts and broken dreams.

Enter Sebastian: mysterious, compelling, seductive.

He brings each of them what she longs for...but in the battle for his heart, will the girls lose their souls?

I won this book in a Goodreads First Reads Giveaway! Thank you, Goodreads, for hosting it.

Precious Blood actually has a really interesting premise. It's just the characters that really got to me. I firmly believe that most of the events I hated in this book were because of the characters, not the plot.

This book centers around three girls--Lucy, Cecilia, and Agnes--who all have issues one way or another. Either they're an unloved celebrity, a broke rock star, and a suicidal hopeless romantic. I'm pretty sure this book has it all. And that's almost not a good thing in this book's case. These three girls all end up in a hospital one night because somehow their issues got the best of them. It's there that they all find matching bracelets that eventually lead them to a church where they meet a hot stranger that they really shouldn't have fallen in love with because he's a two-timing (whoa, three-timing) jerk that only wants them because they're "special." Let's not emit the fact that he doesn't tell them why they're special until they're practically killed in a basement underneath a church.

This is going to be a bad review, so I'm going to start by pointing out the good things that I liked about this book before I dive into the parts that weren't particularly for me. I think there's honestly only one thing that I liked: the plot. The idea of reincarnated saints was something that I found interesting. The pace of the book, although a bit slow at first, wasn't horrendous either. Rough around the edges, yes, but it could've been much, much worse.

Sadly, that's the extent of my like. The only reason I didn't give this book one star was because it wasn't horrible. It was just ridiculous. (Be prepared for a lot of quotes. I took notes on this book. Then again, I took notes for all the books I read over Christmas break.) "You will catch your death out here." Cecilia says this. Let me just point out that Cecilia is the broke rock star that spends her time on the streets hanging out with a stoner that writes some of her songs. She's also a high school drop out. Not only would Cecilia not talk like that, but nobody would talk like that. "You will catch your death out here? No. I just...no.

...Agnes piped up. "But what about what he said? About [the bracelets] leading us here?..." You know, that's real funny, because I don't even remember Agnes being in the scene where Sebastian told Cecilia and Lucy that the bracelets led them to the church where he was staying during the storm. It was little things like this that just irked me. I'm very particular. I notice when little mishappenings occur. I think Agnes as a whole just annoying me though. She always looked at Cecilia sympathetically. If you've read this book, you would know that Cecilia is not a victim whatsoever. She's tough. I think she can handle Lucy saying a few mean words to her.

Oh, and Lucy and Cecilia, man. They were always at each other, usually because of Sebastian. I mean, you two just met the guy. There is not claming or dibs on this one. He is a strange man in a church that is pretty much creepy as hell, and you're still pining and fighting over him? This leads me into another thing that I hated: the instalove between Sebastian and the three girls. They were in the same vicinity for three days and all of a sudden the three girls were in love with Sebastian. I don't know if this had to do with their saint bond or whatever, but it was annoying. I hate instalove.

Oh, I found another mishappening. "No," Agnes said again, this time with no conviction. Agnes never said 'no' the first time. By using 'again,' it's implied that this is the second time Agnes has done such-and-such, except she really didn't. Agnes said 'no' one time and that's all. Like I said, little things like these, I notice them and they get to me.

(And out comes my grammar side.) First, 'off of' is not a grammatically correct phrase. It never was and it never will be. Stop trying to make it happen. And why is the word 'dumpster' capitalized? Unless it's a company that creates dumpsters, then dumpster should not be capitalized. It is an improper noun. It is not a proper nown. It should be lowercase.

I hate how all the girls are so conceited! Like, you three are not God's gift to this Earth so stop acting like it!

There was one line that is just a no-no. The psychiatric floor Perpetual Help also happened to be the highest floor. "The Penthouse," as the ward staffers liked to euphemize it. At that moment, all Agnes could think was that it was a pretty good place to jump from, which might have been what the administrators had in mind when they moved the unit up there. The simplest cost-cutting measure of all. I'm sorry, but that is just wrong. You do not joke about jumpers especially after you just slit your wrists. Just...no. I take it back; I'm not sorry. That's just so wrong to joke about.

There was one scene where Cecilia took a gold charm on her bracelet and used it as a pick for her electric guitar. I'm going out on a limb here so if I'm wrong don't kill me, but I don't think that gold charms work for guitar strings, especially electric guitars. I have both, electric and acoustic, and I've tried to use a multitude of items to strum, but the only item that works is a guitar pick and my fingers. All the other items either (a) break or (b) make a horrible noise. I just don't see how using a gold charm would work.

I don't know. There were just so many things in this book that got to me. I'm really starting to lean toward one star, but I didn't not (again with the double negatives. I use these a lot in my reviews) enjoy it at all. I have to admit that there were parts that caught my interest. I wouldn't really recommend this book to anybody. I know that's horrible to say, but I just really wouldn't. I wouldn't say it was a waste of my time, but it's simply not a book that I will be reading again or reading the sequel to. I don't want to read it if I don't think I will enjoy it, because although I'm good at nitpicking books, I don't enjoy giving bad reviews. It makes me feel like a bad person.

If you want to read this book, get it at the library. Then if you like it (quite a few people do!) then you can buy it. Precious Blood just wasn't for me.

"Without dreams, there are only nightmares, Doctor."

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