A Dream Within A Dream: Without Merit Blog Tour: Review + Giveaway

Without Merit
Author: Colleen Hoover
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Release Date: October 3, 2017
Publisher: Atria Books

Description:

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.

Without Merit is a heartfelt and incredibly realistic contemporary novel that readers are definitely going to want to pick up. I don't normally read this genre, but I've reading some of the author's previous works and like her writing, so I thought I'd give this one a shot. It wasn't at all what I was expecting - even after reading the description. This is so much more than a romance - it's a character study that closely examines and dissects family structures in today's society. The novel talks about a lot of heavy topics - family dysfunction, secrets, mistakes, mental illness, sexuality, love, and forgiveness (just to name a few). The mental illness aspect was mixed in well with the rest of the story, but it was done in a fantastic way. I like the way the author approaches the subject - seriously and without stigma. I found that to be an important part of the book for me personally.

I really liked most of the aspects of the book: the plot, the characters, the relationships, and the romance (of course). Each character in the book had flaws and they weren't hidden from the reader. It made each of them unique and very realistic. I had no problem connecting and empathizing with each of them right away. I enjoyed learning everything about the characters, especially about Merit - the main character. The author wrote the story in the first person point of view, from Merit's perspective. This is my favorite writing style and I love that the book was done this way. We get to really know Merit on a personal level - her every thought, hopes, fears, emotions, dreams, memories - they were all open to us. Seeing everything happen from Merit's perspective made the story all the more real and palpable. I easily fell into Merit's life and could believe that everything happening was real. My heart broke when all of the secrets and truths finally came to light - from all of the characters. It made me think about how we all judge people without really knowing or understanding them or the situations. This book speaks of family, love, forgiveness and so many other universal themes that it can appeal to any reader, not just fans of romance. Definitely recommended for fans of the author and those who like contemporary fiction and romance.

Colleen Hoover is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Slammed, This Girl, Point of Retreat, Hopeless, Losing Hope, Finding Cinderella, Maybe Someday, Ugly Love, Maybe Not, Confess, November 9, and It Ends with Us. She has won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance twice – for Confess in 2015 and It Ends with Us in 2016. Confess was adapted into a seven-episode online series. In 2015, Colleen and her family founded The Bookworm Box, a bookstore and monthly subscription service offering signed novels donated by authors. All profits are given to various charities each month to help those in need. Colleen lives in Texas with her husband and their three boys. Please visit ColleenHoover.com.

FIND COLLEEN ONLINE:

Website: www.ColleenHoover.com

Facebook: www.Facebook.com/ColleenHoover

Twitter: @ColleenHoover

Instagram: @ColleenHoover

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