Book: Without Merit
Author: Colleen Hoover
Series: Standalone
Genre: Contemporary Romance
My Rating: 3/5 Stars
“Not every mistake deserves a consequence. Sometimes the only thing it deserves is forgiveness.”
Once in a while I find myself craving a Colleen Hoover book, and when it came time to read one this time, I was drawn to Without Merit because I had owned it for years and I wanted to get it out of the way. The reason why it took me so long to read it was because I had read a lot of reviews that pretty much summed up how this was collectively the least favourite CoHo book, but I finally decided to give it a try regardless.
Merit is tired of keeping her family members’ secrets. Nobody ever communicates, so she’s left carrying the weight. And yet she’s the one who always gets blamed, who everyone is always mad at. And of course it was too good to be true when an attractive guy, named Sagan, randomly made out with her. She was left with the humiliation of him mistaking her for her twin sister. Everything is suddenly too much. While things spiral out of control, she decides it’s finally time for the secrets to come out and writes her entire family a letter.
Slight Spoilers Ahead:
Like my more recent experiences with CoHo books, I was annoyed by the writing. She writes in a very list-like way. What I mean is that she develops her scenes by saying this happened and then this happened and so on. I also found it to be repetitive. Eventually, though, I got into the story and ignored the writing style the best that I could.
Personally, I didn’t think this needed a romance. I know this is the genre she always writes in, but the family dynamic, working through everyone’s problems, and Merit’s insecurities and hatred towards her family, was enough to be compelling.
“I used to feel like I was on the top of the world. Then one day, I noticed that it felt like I was no longer on the top of the world. I was just floating around inside of it. And then eventually, it felt like the world was on top of me.”
But the more I read, the more okay I was with it. It seemed like Sagan was the only calm addition to the family, so he was a nice buffer between them all. But out of the books of hers I have read so far, this was definitely my least favourite romance.
This one stumped me in terms of figuring out the direction it was intending to go in. It was so weird and ridiculous and sad, and knowing CoHo, I was expecting it to shock me in some way. But it didn’t really shock me. It was a series of small events instead of one BIG reveal. I don’t think a few of the issues were dealt well with by the end, but maybe that was the point. It’s not the ending but the beginning of them mending their issues. It’s not a story of complete resolution but a story that drives this family to go down that path. And we are left to imagine how that will play out.
Do I agree with the reviews about this book? Yes. It is definitely at the bottom of my CoHo list. But I’m happy that I finally read it.
TW for suicide attempt.