'Without Merit' by Colleen Hoover

‘Without Merit’ synopsis from Goodreads –

“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 baptised 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 side lines 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.”

(Click on the Novel title to look at the Goodreads book page)

My ‘Without Merit’ review –

I really enjoyed this novel because I read it in one day, usually I don’t read through books this quickly but I really loved ‘Without Merit’. As a rating, I gave it 4.5/5 stars on Goodreads.

I found this read to be so interesting and controversial. ‘Without Merit’ features discussion about depression and anxiety, family indiscretions, and suicide.

The things I loved most about this novel was the character development of Merit. In the beginning, her perspective is one that I started to believe as normal and at the end of the book I found that I didn’t even notice the signs of Merit’s mental illness.

I really enjoyed how Merit’s relationship between herself and her siblings were really cracked from Merit’s perspective, but after reading the novel, their relationships seemed to be mainly strained because of the lack of trust and love.

Whilst reading there was soo much family drama that I began feeling repulsed by everyone except Sagan (who happens to be the off limits hot Syrian boy living in the Voss household).

I gave it 4.5/5 stars because of the lack of love and involvement of Merit’s family. Even though I was reading from Merits perspective, the only person I thought noticed Merit’s mental state was Luck and soon after him was Sagan. It’s really unfortunate though because I know that for some individuals facing depression and/or anxiety, their loved ones usually aren’t the first people to notice these subtle changes.

All in all, I thought that this novel was such a well written book and different to what I have read from Hoover before in terms of the type of themes addressed. If you’re interested in reading ‘Without Merit’ you really should, it’s a great read but if you’re unsure about reading about suicide and mental illness I think it would be best to read up on those areas before attempting to read this novel.