Este libro le hubiese servido a Colleen Hoover para escribir varios. Es la primera vez que veo que en un mismo libro se tratan tantos problemas y enfermedades psicológicas y psiquiátricas. Es demasiado. O como dice una amiga "mucho con demasiado". CoHo really missed the mark with this one, in my opinion. I really do like that she's moving more towards Contemporary and darker subjects - as with It Ends with Us - but this messy book took on mental illness, sexuality, suicide, abuse, even the Syrian refugee crisis, AND a romance. None of them were done very well. Not every mistake deserves a consequence. Sometimes the only thing it deserves is forgiveness.” – Sagan

When Merit stumbles across some pretty huge and disturbing family secrets and then is forced by Sagan to see some of her own transgressions, she goes down a path of destruction and decides to call her entire family out on all of their secrets. Will uncovering all of the Voss family secrets tear them apart or heal all the wounds from the past? It annoys me when people try to convince other people that their anger or stress isn't warranted if someone else in the world is worse off than them. It's bull. Your emotions and reactions are valid, Merit. Don't let anyone tell you any different. You're the only one who feels them." It also at times felt like I was reading a play in terms of how the scenes and dialogue were delivered between the characters. And we are the audience watching this play unfold. This book at its heart is a family trying to work out its issues, and come out the other side hopefully in a good way. I had the pleasure of receiving this book a week before the official release date. I’m not even going to deny the fact that I did this as soon as the book was in my hands.I would like to take a moment and say that I appreciate the fact that there are authors out there who are willing and motivated to write about issues close to their heart and issues that are happening in the world today. CoHo does this and once again, I feel like this book will have a great impact. With that being said, and the fact that I'm a huge Colleen Hoover fan (I've read them all except Too Late -- I'm getting there!), I don't have a problem with saying that this was not my favourite book of hers. And you know what? That's fine. Cool, even. Not every reader is going to like every book and that's just dandy. Doesn't mean she's not a fantastic author or I'm suddenly not a fan of hers, it just means that this story didn't work as well for me as it may for some other people. Normally when I read a CoHo book my Kindle is filled with highlights and notes, but for Without Merit, I only have two. It may not be two because one of them is a popular one that was made to standout so I don’t know if that even counts. One day, a hot dude called Sagan kisses Merit unexpectedly. She reciprocates, but soon realises she has been mistaken for her twin and that she has just kissed Honor's boyfriend. To make matters worse, she can't stop thinking about him. And worse than that-- shortly after, Honor moves Sagan into the Voss household. This was a story about depression. The ins and outs and in betweens. I love that over and over it's written that depression can take so many different forms of exhaustion. That it's not as visible as we may think. That it can take so many different forms that, more often than not, the person with depression has no idea they're going through it every day. I think it's very eye opening to see it written in a way that makes it clear depression is more than just being very sad. It's a sum of so many different, contrasting feelings put together. 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.

Listen, I couldn’t contain myself. It had to be done. I have no regrets. Okay, I lied. I totally regret screaming for 5 minutes straight. My throat didn't deserve this cruelty. In all honesty, I apologize if you're reading this entire review like, "omg this is such a hot mess". Well, I'll be kind enough to provide y'all a an excuse translation for this whole thing.

Toys

wasted over being disappointed that no one hasn’t invented a restart button. To be honest, how long do we have to wait? Until 3017? Because I want to read this again. Now. And before I forget, I need to mention that Colleen makes herself a character in this book. She made herself a secondary character! HA! She's such a savage and I love it! I started laughing when I realized what was going on, it was fantastic. Creo que por eso le costaba tanto aceptar que sufría de depresión, y mucho más le costaba pedir ayuda, ya que no dejaba de pensar, en lo mal que ella trataba a los demás, así que porque alguien se preocuparía por ella. And while people are saying Without Merit is not really a romance, I'd actually disagree. It may have a plot outside of the romance, unlike some of Hoover's earlier books, but it is still very romantic. A lot of the story feels centred around the romantic tensions between Merit and Sagan. I didn't like either of them. Sagan mansplains everything to Merit, coddles her against her wishes by saying he won't make out with her for her own good (ugh), and then even says this which I think is supposed to be sweet:

Speaking of tears, I heard from google that 65% of your body is made up of water. Mmmmm, interesting because…. wasted on the cover like *slow claps*, talk about aesthetics. I feel like whoever designed this, quite literally, went into my brain and took out everything I ever wanted for this cover. I think my favorite part of this story was Sagan reminding Merit that we all have different stress levels for the things we're going through. I think that's just such an important reminder, so I wanted to end this the way I began it, with a quote:

Other than the blurb, I don't really want to post too much about what the story is about. Colleen Hoover is one of the authors who has fully gained my trust over the years and for me just knowing that she wrote the book is enough to make me feel confident diving into the story blind. I would strongly encourage you to do the same.