Without Merit

by Hoover, Colleen
ISBN: 9781501170621
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Used - Trade Paperback - 9781501170621

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Overview

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover comes a moving and haunting novel of family, love, and the power of the truth.

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.

Poignant and powerful, Without Merit explores the layers of lies that tie a family together and the power of love and truth.

  • Format: TradePaperback
  • Author: Hoover, Colleen
  • ISBN: 9781501170621
  • Condition: Used
  • Dimensions: 8.20 x 1.10
  • Number Of Pages: 384
  • Publication Year: 2017

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  • “Not every mistake deserves a consequence. Sometimes the only thing it deserves is forgiveness.”

    Jennifer E. - 3 years 4 months ago

    “So many people dream of living in a house with a white picket fence. Little do they know, there’s no such thing as a perfect family, no matter how white the picket fence is…I can say with certainty that we live in the most unusual house in this whole town. I say house because it is certainly not a home. And inside this house are seven of the most unusual occupants. No one would be able to determine from the outside of our house that our family of seven includes an atheist, a homewrecker, an ex-wife suffering from a severe case of agoraphobia, and a teenage girl whose weird obsession borders on necrophilia. No one would be able to determine any of that from inside our house, either. We’re good at keeping secrets in this family.” “I’m sick of the secrets and I’m sick of the lies. And I’m tired of being the one person in this house who has to hold on to all of them!...Maybe that’s the root of a lot of family issues. It isn't actually the issues people are hung up about for so long. It’s that no one has the courage to take the first step in talking about the issues.” “Having depression is no more out of your control than…intolerance to milk, or…pale skin, or…bad vision. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. But it’s not something you can ignore or correct on your own. And it doesn’t make you abnormal.” We perceive normal as “most people without a broken brain.” But “We’re all a degree of fucked-up.” Without Merit deftly interweaves mental illness with global immigration. We often approach both with the attitude: “It’s never directly affected me so I’ve never thought to even look into it.” Perspective is “kind of like putting someone else’s eyeballs inside your own head…You shouldn’t compare your stress to mine. We all have different baselines.” It is often easy to be candid about others’ secrets yet difficult to express our own truths. When the burden of Merit’s silence threatens to suffocate her, she determines, “Don’t make your presence known. Make your absence felt…If I stopped showing up, life would go on. With or without Merit.” However, she discovers, “Not every mistake deserves a consequence. Sometimes the only thing it deserves is forgiveness.”