Without Merit: A Novel

It doesn't matter what Colleen writes I know I am going to love it and Without Merit was no exception. Colleen deals with the subject of depression very well and the signs and symptoms someone may experience. I feel this would help alot of readers suffering themselves to identify and hopefully seek any help they may need. The thing I loved most about this book was the Voss family. Families come in all shapes and sizes and the Voss family are certainly no exception. With the head of the family seemingly uninterested the kids seem to play by their own rules. Colleen manages to turn this on it's head and we see a very different side to this family. Of course it wouldn't be normal to have a Colleen Hoover book that doesn't take you on a rollercoaster emotionally and that is definitely the case here. From reading with your heart in your mouth to laughing out loud this book has it all. Colleen goes back to her Y.A. roots with Without Merit and doesn't let us down. A Stunning five star read. I only hope Colleen can keep going with these amazing stories she manages to give us.

This is not my favourite CoHo book at all. The first 50% of it I found really boring and difficult to get into, it gradually improved and became more interesting after that point but I still wouldn't have rated it any higher than a 3.5. Some of the topics which were included in the book were dealt with quite well but they came and went suddenly. I found it difficult to connect with the characters, probably due to the big question of why didn't the family just communicate? There were people moving in and out of that house like chess pieces and no one tells a teenage girl why, warns or even explains what is going on inside her home? It was confusing at points and felt a little unfinished with many unanswered questions & unexplored topics. I wanted to know more about many of the characters & their backstory. But the romance was sweet and there were a lot of twists and turns throughout which kept me intrigued and reading, so it wasn't bad at all it just felt a little unfinished! (Also posted on Goodreads)

It was a very hard one to get into but after I did (about half way through) I ended up loving it!!!! It had a lot of good messages in it and really made me think a lot about my own family and the issues in it.

I'm not really sure where I heard this, but I could have sworn that Colleen Hoover said Without Merit would be a lighter and younger novel than she's published in her last couple of books. But that was really not the case. Younger...yes. Lighter...not really. Only shortly before this book published did I even see an official description for it. And while the description does mention family secrets, there's no hint as to what those secrets may be. But boy are there many. I don't know that Colleen Hoover can write a book that's simply a love story without having a good bit of drama and darker subjects woven into the story. Without Merit has all of the following: atheism, mental illness, depression, extra marital affairs, gay/bisexual characters, inappropriate sexual situations, suicide, and various other issues. Yet the biggest theme I'd say throughout the entire book is perspective. How we only see a version of the events that happen in someone else's life and we certainly don't know what others are thinking or feeling unless they share those things with us. And how we often assume things about how others think and feel based upon their actions and our own biases. While I was a little overwhelmed with the amount of dysfunction within Merit's family, I did enjoy the message about perspective. Even though I can't say that I hated Merit as a character, I can't say that I loved her either. She's flawed for sure, regularly making assumptions about her family members based on partial information. She's definitely not my favorite of Colleen Hoover's leading females. But at the same time, she truly was one of the more likeable characters within this family for me. Sagan was a saint. It was hard to see why he liked Merit, and actually at some point he actually doesn't like Merit that much. But he was involved in Merit's life and family in a way that goes beyond what the average person would do. Yet I liked him most because he inspired Merit to grow and become a better person. A small annoyance for me was the character names. I felt like they were all a bit too unique to be believable. There's Barnaby, two Victorias, Merit, Honor, Utah, Sage, and Luck. I mean Victoria isn't too odd, but having two of them in addition to the other cast was slightly too much for me. Because of my background, there were a few things that felt borderline for me. While I was annoyed at Merit's father for being an atheist, I appreciated this being a characteristic that didn't feel pushed upon the reader as he didn't even try to push the same on his children as well. I could easily feel like the characters were a little sacrilegious but Colleen Hoover actually kind of combats that in her writing preemptively. And then of course the gay and bisexual characters were slightly annoying because I'm beginning to feel like she includes this in every singl...

This is now one of my favorite CoHo books. While I've enjoyed a number of the author's books, there's been a few that simply missed the mark with me. I find it fascinating that one of her lowest-rated books is one of my favorites and one of her highest-rated books is my least favorite. Maybe it's because I'm a somewhat regular reader of YA novels and this one hit the marks with wit, romance, and family dynamics. Whatever it is, I loved this one and finished it in a day.