Hello friends! 🌸 Welcome to another book review. Thank you for being here, and May ended so quickly! I have been on a soft romance/ regular romance time these days, and although this wasn’t the one that gave me the feels, I enjoyed reading it. Out of every book I have read from Hoover, this might be my least favourite, maybe because of how unrealistic certain parts felt or how quick it ended although the plot could be much, much longer; I wanted to bring you my review about Without Merit nevertheless. Let me not babble any further and let’s get into the review!
The book follows Merit, a teenage girl with a troubled family and lots of confusion. She mentions how weird her family is a lot, and although up to the end of the book, you only consider them as a family with a few complications, she doesn’t feel like she fits in the family whatsoever, always cuddled up in her room and in her own world. To be fair to you, she doesn’t try much to fit in as well, however, teenagers are teenagers, and I did not expect much from her either.
I must admit that the book started fairly exciting and gave me the feeling that it was going to be a usual of Hoover, I expected some form of drama which would eventually be unveiled. And yes while I got that in return, the representation of mental health issues and family dynamics didn’t really sit well with me throughout the book. Merit is a teenager like I have said, but this is not the only thing that makes her unique in her family. She is the identical twin of Honor, and she has two other siblings, one is older than them and the other one is fairly younger than them. Merit actually gathers all the “dirty” secrets of her family. She often calls herself a teenager and thinks that certain behaviours and feelings she has towards her family or her friends, which I should mention that she has none almost, is because she is at the age of rebelling and thinking differently than adults. What she doesn’t know is that she is battling with depression. The representation of this illness was quite different in the book. I am no psychologist but I have mentioned this on my blog before, I have been going to therapy due to anxiety disorders and depression myself, and as described by my psychologist: I am a high-functioning depressed person at times. My life doesn’t stop when I feel at my lowest neither it stops when I feel at my highest. I felt the same thing with Merit however as we learned more about the secrets and as she started coming closer to this boy who miraculously ended up living in their old church house, you remember that the mental illness is not as airy as the author represented in the book. It was weird but every character in the book actually represented some form of mental illness in my eyes, it was almost like Hoover characterised certain symptoms and created these characters and wanted to give them a background however the plot was way too short for that.
This was my main problem with the book. It felt like this book was written way before the other book I read from her because it felt really amateur in terms of language and how the plot developed. Maybe this is completely me but out of every other book I have read from her this was my least favourite I must say. Because I couldn’t shake off the feeling that getting over a trauma or mental illness or even accepting the fact that you have a certain mental illness is not that easy and it doesn’t happen within 20 pages of a book. You don’t suddenly open your eyes and realise what is going around you and what is changing around you, it requires a lot of guts and courage to ask for help. And yes she did ask for help at one point however it was just very weird that she thought that they should go and live their lives “Without Merit”. Other than that I enjoyed the characters and I enjoyed the slight complexity that was given to them but I feel like if this book was 200 pages longer it could be a lot more successful in my eyes. Nevertheless of course it wasn’t a horrible book, however, it didn’t really affect me in other ways that I usually get affected by books lol.
After months of therapy and learning how hard to live with a mental illness, I have one thing to say. If you ever need help, don’t expect to open your eyes one day and see that everything appears normally. Go out, and I know it hurts so much but try to get help. Because it was professional help which saved my life. I always say it and I will keep saying it, it was that sliver of courage I ended up finding in myself on a very hopeless morning which helped me to still sit down in front of my computer and write this review to you. 🫂
Until I see you in my next block please take care, stay safe and don’t forget that you are never alone. And the darkest nights show you the brightest stars. ❤️
Luster of Books 