Without Merit
Colleen Hoover, 2017
Romance Young adultContemporary fiction
A girl in a family of secret-keepers stops performing cheerfulness and starts asking what truth would cost them.
Feels like tenderness, hope and longing. About family, love and society.
A page from the book
What it feels like when the world stops holding you up.
I used to feel like i was on the top of the world. Then one day, i noticed that it felt like i was no longer on the top of the world. I was just floating around inside of it. And then eventually, it felt like the world was on top of me. Colleen Hoover.Hoover was a social worker and special-education teacher before self-publishing her first novel, Slammed, in 2012.
Books that feel like this
More by Colleen Hoover
Ugly Love
Colleen Hoover, 2014
A nurse restarting her life falls for a man who offers only sex and no past—and discovers how much pain can hide behind a closed door.
November 9
Colleen Hoover, 2015
A scarred former teen actress and a stranger who poses as her boyfriend make a pact to meet every year on the same date.
Maybe Someday
Colleen Hoover, 2014
A music student who hides her own songwriting listens every night to the guitarist across the courtyard — until he catches her watching.
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Questions readers ask
- What is Without Merit like?
- Feels like tenderness, hope and longing. About family, love and society.
- What should I read after Without Merit?
- If you liked Without Merit, try Just for the Summer (Abby Jimenez), Everything, Everything (Nicola Yoon) and Redeeming Love (Francine Rivers).
A taste of the feed
Some people spend years being told their needs are too many.
You’re not asking too much,“ he said. ”You were just asking the wrong person. Ask me instead.
Just for the Summer · Abby Jimenez
The one day a year when everything you're missing becomes impossible to ignore.
My birthday is the one day of the year that we’re both most acutely aware of my illness. It’s the acknowledging of the passage of time that does it. Another whole year of being sick, no hope for a cure on the horizon. Another year of missing all the normal teenagery things—learner’s permit, first kiss, prom, first heartbreak, first fender bender. Another year of my mom doing nothing but working and taking care of me. Every other day these omissions are easy—easier, at least—to ignore.
Everything, Everything · Nicola Yoon
The difference between being someone’s partner and someone’s god.
No, you won’t. And I won’t be enough for you, Amanda. I don’t want to be the center of your life. I want to be part of it. I want to be your husband, not your god. People can’t always be there for you, no matter how much they want to be. And that includes me.
Redeeming Love · Francine Rivers
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