Danielle Vega’s ‘The Merciless’ is ruthless, gory and haunting in all the best ways. Rating: 4/5.

*This is book #19/35 for my 2015 book challenge. You can take a look at the reading challenge here.

Brooklyn 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. . . .

I had been craving a good horror novel for a loooong time, and this one was (finally) right up my alley. Merciless was so good that I devoured it in just a few days. Truthfully, I would have read it all in one shot if it weren’t for life responsibilities. It wasn’t scary so much as thrillingly bizarre.

There were a lot of parts that were just straight up weird, and I think I would have liked a tiny bit more back story. I think it would have creeped me out a little bit more. Instead, things happened very quickly, but suspense was still built throughout the story. There were quite a bit twists and turns, and while the violence and gore was a little over-dramatic at times, I was fully immersed in the story.

This is something that I could totally see being acted out in a movie, and I can’t wait to read the sequel. I wouldn’t say it’s the stuff of nightmares – truly scary things have a realistic nature to them, which this did not – but it’s creepy enough to give you a little jolt of adrenaline when read at night, alone, right before bed.

Rating: 

If you’re interested in reading my GoodReads updates from this book you can do so here. I must say, they’re quite entertaining. It will tell you exactly what I was thinking on certain pages.

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