Merit meets a handsome young man on the street, and then he kisses her. When he answers his phone, it becomes clear that he thought she was her identical twin sister Honor. When she get home, Merit learns that he, Sagan, has moved in with her family.
Merit’s family home is a bit different, they live in a building that used to be a church as her father bought it out of spite and rivalry with the reverend of the church. Merit’s mother Victoria lives in the basement – it soon becomes clear that Victoria suffers from agoraphobia among other things. The main part of the building is where the rest of her family lives: Merit’s twin Honor, and their brother Utah (who is just one year older than the twins), as well as their father Barnaby and his second wife Victoria and their little boy, Merit’s half brother Moby.
Shortly after meeting Sagan, Merit meets another guy called Luck. Luck turns out to be her step-mother Victoria’s brother and he moves in with them too.
When Merit has a run in with Sagan and then finds out that Luck and her brother are hooking up, Merit gets drunk and writes a letter spilling all the secrets of everyone in the house, and then she takes a handful of pills she’s stolen from her mother. Thankfully she survives her suicide attempt and after this, she learns a lot about the people who live in the house with her…
This was a pretty good book – not as good as Reminders of Him which made me cry (and that’s quite difficult) – but a good book nonetheless. Not sure about the names of the characters though – they’re all a touch weird.
Read for the Read Between the Lines Reading Challenge 2025
Prompt 44: A GoodReads Choice Award Nominee
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
