The book did not really work for me. I DNF'ed it. I wasn’t able to connect with any of the many characters in the book and I found myself putting down the book a lot because it was never really catching my attention.

I recently bought a new kindle after my old one broke. For some reason I was unable to download this title from the cloud onto my kindle, therefore I will be unable to review this title. I am sorry for any inconvenience caused

Never did I think I would read YA novel again and actually enjoy it more than a NA novel.

I dived into this book with comparatively low expectations, basically due to the fact it was YA and I've sort of gotten over the YA phase in my life and the stupid decisions that teenagers take generally have made my head hurt (yes, I cannot believe I was a stupid teenager too. If i had a chance to go back I would actually hit my teenage self but let her do the same mistakes, I know I won't be the same without making them). But something in this book was different. First of all this book was not a typical YA book, as you would have figured from my ranting above. The book is definitely darker and it also gives a more mature feeling. The characters are a lot mature than your teenage self and they are so damn like-able. Mercy is one of the nicest YA heroine I've ever read about. Everything about her was relateabale at the same time there was not a single thing she did that made me dislike her. I loved how she picked herself up and went forward in life. One of the best things we get to see in the book is watching Pru and Mercy reconnecting. The bond that the sisters have is truly magical. It was a wondrous journey watching the two of them finding solace in each other and finally come into terms with their lives. Next was Cross. Once again, can I say that Cross is one of the nicest book boyfriends in YA history? He was so patient and kind and all that we expect from a significant other. I would be sad if they do not end up married with many foster kids.

The mystery element in the story is in one way one of the strongest in the story. Another beautiful thing about this book is that they let the romance take a step back as they allow the main cause of the book take the center spot in the story. After we were actually introduced to the villain of the story I pretty much guessed that person was the reason that Faith had died, so that part was not actually a big revelation for me. Despite that I could not find myself to truly hate that person either. They did what they thought was the best for both of them and moment of lapse of judgement in a certain way had driven them to it. In no way am I telling what they did was correct but I do get that sometimes our feelings do get ahead of ourselves and we end up doing what it say instead of using our brains to actually filter it before. Despite I sound like I am defending the villain, truly I am not. What happened to Faith was truly sad and I wish that would not have happened to anyone. In a way she was human and she made mistakes too and she was way too young to die in such a manner.

All in all the story was beautifully crafted and the plot flawed in a steady stream. Despite being a YA novel I want to give a note of warning to anyone who reads this, this contains some mildly heavy themes and to read at their own discretion.

Mercy was an okay character, and I felt quite sorry for her. She lost a lot in a short space of time.

This wasn't a bad read, but after a while I just lost interest unfortunately. The pacing was a bit too slow, so it ended up dragging in areas for me.
There are so many concepts in this book that are extremely hard to write about and make it good. Of course there will always be controversy over such issues, but this novel did an incredible job of portraying them. It writes about issues such as self harm, depression, religion, suicide, and teen pregnancies. To write about all of this at once without feeling overwhelmed is quite amazing. Although there were some moments where it felt like so much was going on at once, the author did a good job of balancing it out.

I wanted to love this book so much, usually I really enjoy this type of book, the whole losing a sibling thing seems to be a main theme in a lot of books I've read and it's something that every author tackles differently as it's something that affects everyone differently.

But I just couldn't focus on it.

Mercy was okay, Cross was okay.

Everything was just okay. When I wanted amazing. I just couldn't connect with this book as well as I wanted too and that kind of makes me quite sad as I had such high hopes.