“Without Merit” by Colleen Hoover
Description: “Not every mistake deserves a consequence. Sometimes the only thing it deserves is forgiveness.
The Voss family is anything but normal. They live in a repurposed church, newly baptized Dollar Voss. The once cancer-stricken mother lives in the basement, the father is married to the mother’s former nurse, the little half-brother isn’t allowed to do or eat anything fun, and the eldest siblings are irritatingly perfect. Then, there’s Merit.
Merit Voss collects trophies she hasn’t earned and secrets her family forces her to keep. While browsing the local antiques shop for her next trophy, she finds Sagan. His wit and unapologetic idealism disarm and spark renewed life into her—until she discovers that he’s completely unavailable. Merit retreats deeper into herself, watching her family from the sidelines when she learns a secret that no trophy in the world can fix.
Fed up with the lies, Merit decides to shatter the happy family illusion that she’s never been a part of before leaving them behind for good. When her escape plan fails, Merit is forced to deal with the staggering consequences of telling the truth and losing the one boy she loves.”
Review: The beginning of this book hooked me, how could it not? I was intrigued by this trophy collecting, school skipping, kissing random boys girl. It started strong but by the middle of the book I felt that it started to drag. “Without Merit” is a heavy book, it discusses a lot of dark topics (maybe too many). This book explores suicide, mental illness, grudges, the Syrian conflict, sexuality and family dynamics. These are topics that need to be discussed more openly in society but I felt that there were too many difficult subjects. All of the topics were touched on briefly and were not explored as much as they could or should have been. I loved that the Syrian conflict was introduced in the story but it was only 5-10 pages worth of information. That would have been a great issue to keep going back to. I would have liked it if only one or two of the issues were present and explored more thoroughly. The biggest issue discussed was that of depression/mental illness. I liked how depression wasn’t sensationalized or overblown. Merit’s depression consists of feeling out of sorts, not eating, being tired and not having interests in what she once did. This book explored how depression and mental illness can come in all shapes and sizes and it is nothing you should feel ashamed about. I also like how Sagan didn’t want to start a hot and heavy romance with Merit because she needed to focus on herself (even though the ending kind of contradicts this). This book is full of quick judgments and misunderstandings. If the Voss family communicated more openly they may not have had such hatred and animosity towards each other. This book teaches some valuable life lessons and explores some serious topics. “Without Merit” is not my favorite Colleen Hoover book but it does have some beauty moments in it and some valuable lessons. I definitely recommend this book!