This is one of the books that when I remember reading it, my blood boils.

So last December, I had this thing going in my mind, this bizarre reading goal to read all Colleen Hoover's books one by one. Like I said, she's a VERY POPULAR author, and I really wanna know what magic trick she uses to do that because I'm a romance author wannabe to. Then I decided to pick up Without Merit because 1.) it was sold to me as a book that represents 'depression', and your boy has an affinity to books that he can relate to and 2.) it won the Goodreads Choice Awards for ROMANCE category. So I was like okay, I wanna read it.

And boy, oh, boy was I super disappointed. I was really offended by how this book handled depression.

Quick summary of the book: It's about Merit, a 17 year old girl who has this weird family and weird names with tons of underdeveloped secrets. She has a twin sister, named Honor. She's hot, popular, and has this weird fate of falling in love with guys who are dying, a brother named Utah who doesn't have a personality until that 'plot twist (which I don't wanna spoil), an atheist father named Barnaby who cheated on his sick wife who's now living on their basement, and a stepmother who formerly was the mom's nurse.

What I really didn't like about the depression rep in this book was that 1.) At the first half of the book, I didn't feel that she was depressed AT ALL. Merit's internal monologues didn't strike me as someone who has LOST HER PURPOSE IN LIFE. Here's the thing: I know that each depressed person experience it in their own ways BUT the common denominator that we have, wherever we are in the world, is that DEPRESSION IS NOT ABOUT BEING PERPETUALLY SAD but about you, as an individual, LOSING THE PURPOSE IN LIFE. You feel lethargic, irritable, confused, and whatever symptom you manifest because of this voice inside your head that says no matter what you do, you'll never be good enough, everything you do is futile and meaningless. My goodness, sometimes we can't even cry even if we want to. People can be sad, apparently, that's an emotion but that doesn't mean that a person has a depression already. Being angsty, irritable, and an ASSHOLE doesn't necessarily mean you have depression.

When the story got to the middle, by the hands of gods of cliché, Merit started showing 'depression' signs

she takes pills, she wanted to kill herself because she's drunk and fed up with all the bullshit of her family, then discover they were placebo pills for her mom

then secrets started spewing uncontrollably because of her. Then there's this one scene where Merit just visited a website or something then read the 'signs that you are depressed' and then checked all or most of them. Then, voila, maybe I'm depressed. WOW! I just couldn't.

And by the way, since this was marketed as romance, of course there is this love interest. I'm not gonna tell more details about him because spoilers, but the first time they met, the guy kissed her because he thought she was her sister, and she liked it (even though she thought that this guy was Honor's boyfriend). And then, just for the sake of plot twist and faux deep characterization, this guy apparently came from a family of Syrian refugees. What I didn't like about this was this felt like forced diversity. Because after him narrating his background story, that's it, it wasn't brought up again. It wasn't a vital part of his personality. If that scene, where they talked about his nationality, wasn't brought up, I wouldn't have thought that he was of Syrian descent. I mean, for me it's good to have diversity in books, but if the representation would be a little lackluster, that would really put a bad taste in my mouth.

So going back to the depression thing and the family secrets, everyone decides to forgive each other, move on, and go to therapy (which was good) but as a vital element to the story, all of these felt so forced and unnatural for me because it all happened so quickly near the end, and that we skipped a lot of character development. There were no consequences for what Merit did, and this where the main quote from the book took into action, that sometimes there are no consequences for mistakes, just forgiveness. I feel a little icky on that because in order for a person to deserve forgiveness, they must learn from the consequences of their mistakes first.

Plus, if you think that's all, there was another twist in the end as to why the mom still lived in the basement despite the cheating, and all of these became convoluted, brushed off easily, to the point that I was too exhausted reading and just listened to the audio to finish this book.

WOOHH! THOSE WERE JUST SOME ISSUES. THERE WERE A LOT OF THINGS THIS BOOK TRIED TO TACKLE, such as being bisexual and a slut at the same time, correcting one's sexuality (gay to straight), atheism, dysfunctional brother-sister relationship, and more. IT WAS SO TIRING AND DRAINING TO UNPACK ALL OF THEM.

If you want a good fictional book about depression, try [b: The Midnight Library|52578297|The Midnight Library|Matt Haig|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1602190253l/52578297._SY75_.jpg|74043794]. The narration was in third person, but I could feel that the main character was depressed even though she didn't explicitly said that she was depressed.

ALL IN ALL, A TOTAL DISAPPOINTMENT. WHY DID I EVEN READ THIS? WILL I CONTINUE READING COLLEEN HOOVER BOOKS? YES, AND I HOPE MY NEXT BOOK OF HERS WON'T BE A PENANCE.