The Merciless Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
"Page-to-page Stephen King-style terror..."—Booklist"The Merciless is chilling...think 'Mean Girls' meets 'The Exorcist.'"—MTV.com“Pretty Little Liars fans, get a sneak peek at your new favorite book The Merciless…a nail biting thriller.”—Seventeen MagazineBrooklyn Stevens sits in a pool of her own blood, tied up and gagged. No one outside of these dank basement walls knows she’s here. No one can hear her scream. Sofia Flores knows she shouldn’t have gotten involved. When she befriended Riley, Grace, and Alexis on her first day at school, she admired them, with their perfect hair and their good-girl ways. They said they wanted to save Brooklyn. They wanted to help her. Sofia didn’t realize they believed Brooklyn was possessed. Now, Riley and the girls are performing an exorcism on Brooklyn—but their idea of an exorcism is closer to torture than salvation. All Sofia wants is to get out of this house. But there is no way out. Sofia can’t go against the other girls...unless she wants to be next. By the shockingly twisted end, readers will be faced with the most haunting question of all: Is there evil in all of us?
Series: The Merciless (Book 1)
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Razorbill (June 9, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1595147233
ISBN-13: 978-1595147233
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (83 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #108,936 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #62 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Social & Family Issues > Bullying #139 in Books > Teens > Mysteries & Thrillers > Thrillers & Suspense #190 in Books > Teens > Mysteries & Thrillers > Fantasy & Supernatural
See more of my reviews on The YA Kitten! My copy was an ARC I received from the publisher.Oh good lord, this novel. It made me feel so many things and bamboozled me so well at the end that the only reason I didn’t start stomping around and cursing is the fact I was at my ailing grandmother’s house at the time and I’m pretty sure my language would have sent her right to the afterlife. I wanted some YA horror in my life and that’s exactly what I got: some YA horror that bends the mind, gives you chills, and makes you angry. A little too angry, methinks.One thing I really appreciate about the novel is its diversity. In this core group of five major female characters, two are something other than white (our narrator Sofia is Mexican and her new friend Grace is black). I’m not particularly fond of how Grace is described because you should never say a character has chocolate skin, but baby steps! Not good ones, but still! The group itself is pretty wild: Sofia the new girl trying to fit in with these girls who adopted her, Grace the wild card who wavers but generally falls in with the leaders, Alexis the follower, and Riley the leader. Then there’s their target: rebellious Brooklyn, former member of the group. Though not deeply characterized, watching these five fall apart in varying degrees is almost fun.Perhaps the most irritating part of the novel is how it so completely fits the mold of horror and makes all the obvious mistakes. Making a plan to help Brooklyn escape? Oh, stab her in the leg even though injuring the leg is exactly what police officers and others are taught to do to keep someone from going anywhere! Going to investigate some suspicious noises and approaching it like you would a rabid dog or wild animal (almost exact words)?
I really had high hopes for this book. It had an interesting enough premise, new girl is torn between the popular girls and this outsider girl named Brooklyn. There was most certainly a Mean Girls vibe to it, down to the new girl spying on one group for the other. In the beginning, and for most of the book, it’s impossible to tell if there really is anything supernatural going on. You don’t know until the very end if it’s anything more than a petty high school battle between religious fanatics and some kind of Satanist.The characters themselves were pretty lacking. Some pretty screwed things happen in the book and I didn’t really care. I felt almost no attachment to the characters at all. The descriptions of the scenery left a lot to be desired too. Everything in the story was flat and empty, like yeah you’re in the South, but you can describe some more scenery than that. Most of the story takes place in a house that was never finished being built, and the author loves to remind you about the billowing plastic on all the windows and doors, to the point where it gets a little annoying. The story itself seemed very long and drawn out, and I had a hard time reading every sentence. Even skipping a paragraph every once in a while, the story made sense and could easily have been condensed.Spoilers!!! Most of the book is nothing more than descriptions of torture, and killing. It seemed like little attention was payed to the actual plot line, and the main goal of writing this was to write torture scenes. There is a plot twist at the end, but it’s honestly not so surprising once you read it, and it just kinda seemed like an excuse to include more gore in the story. End spoilers.Overall I didn’t think it was a very good book.
The Merciless
