| BOOK REVIEW | WITHOUT MERIT BY COLLEEN HOOVER

Without Merit
Author : Colleen Hoover
Genres : Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Publication : October 3rd 2017 by Atria Books

Synopsis : 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.

You all know by now that Colleen Hoover is an autobuy author for me. This one was not my favorite but I still enjoyed it !
She still deals with heavy topics into this book, especially abuse.
I read it many years ago so it’s gonna be a short review !

Don’t make your presence known. Make your absence felt.

Plot

We follow Merit, who doesn’t fit entirely into her family. I liked her dark sense of humor.

The story is about the Voss family, it’s not focused on the romance at all ! Slowly, CoHo unravels the tangles of strife between the members of the Voss family.

In this book, CoHo differs from her usual genre that is romance. She has taken a great risk by doing so but the result is a powerful, raw and true story. Merit and her posse are feeling more humans than I thought possible.

In this book she deals with mental health, depression. These are heavy and important topics but there’s always a dim of hope.
While the first part of the book seems totally unrealistic, you have to reach the second part of the book to fully understand the whole story.

Don’t make your presence known. Make your absence felt.

This book also shows us how important and crucial discussion is. If I had to describe this book in just one sentence it would be : talk to your loved ones so unsaid things won’t poison your life.

All families have issues, have flaws because perfection doesn’t exist. All you have to do is communicate.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. As always with Colleen Hoover, she manages to write something different than her previous books.

No matter how hard you try, things don’t always turn out the way you wish they could.

About the author

International and #1 New York Times bestselling author of romance, YA and Women’s Fiction.

Still doesn’t know the difference between affect/effect, further/farther, or if the oxford comma is in or out.

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