Without Merit

"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 -- excerpt from book

Coming from the author who took this genre with a whirlwind and a storm, her books are something you will learn to love. Latest from her collection of great books, this story focuses on a seventeen year old with family issues. She is someone who will trigger your feels in a sense that you might be able to relate to her. Her issues are not of the odd ones and definitely something common in our society.

Many characters are involved with our main heroine, she's quite conflicted with most of them. From her point of view, she would tell how she sees them. You can gauge her personality by her thoughts and action and realised that some days I'm just like her. I absolutely love it when she interacts with her family as it's the key to capturing my attention. Another character that caught my heart would be the love interest of Merit. He is one individual that is mysterious at first and when you get to know him better, the more you'll love him. Every other personnel in the household are certainly unique/normal enough to read about, I swear you'll never be bored.

As a new adult genre, do not expect too much of the plotline and you will enjoy the book. The events that happened are results of reactions from the characters of the book. You can expect a smooth and intriguing story but at some point it was slight bore where you wished something would happen already. But luckily for the plot twist it held my attention once again. 

Overall I would say this book was good but not as good as my favourite November 9. The character growth is good but the plot is average. There are certain moments that pulls at your heart string but not strong enough. The conversations about a certain issue highlighted in the  book can be related easily and that's one of the important things that I appreciate how the author approaches it. Without a doubt if you're a fan this book is a must have, but comparing it to the other two I've read, this is currently 3rd place.