For me personally, picking fewer topics to discuss would have worked out better. Because you run the risk of not talking about the issue properly, not representing it how it should in the story - it shouldn’t just be a tick-box case where you throw the issue in there just to get it out there - these issues are important and should be given time to be explored and talked about in a book. For me, there were too many issues trying to be jam packed into one and the risk of that is that there’s never enough time to properly explore the issues on hand and this is very very important. There’s basically A LOT going on - and I get what the author was trying to do in bringing these issues to light - but quantity over quantity. There’s a very dysfunctional family dynamic going on, there’s issues about identity, sexuality, drugs, abuse. Poignant and powerful, Without Merit explores the layers of lies that tie a family together and the power of love and truth.This is darker than Hoover’s usual, evident in the content and the issues discussed in the book. 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. Merit retreats deeper into herself, watching her family from the sidelines, when she learns a secret that no trophy in the world can fix.įed 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.

His wit and unapologetic idealism disarm and spark renewed life into her-until she discovers that he’s completely unavailable. While browsing the local antiques shop for her next trophy, she finds Sagan.

Merit Voss collects trophies she hasn’t earned and secrets her family forces her to keep. 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.

They live in a repurposed church, newly baptized Dollar Voss.

Sometimes the only thing it deserves is forgiveness.” “Not every mistake deserves a consequence. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of It Ends With Us and November 9 comes a moving and haunting novel of family, love and the power of the truth.

Without merit