Merciless (Danielle Vega)

Merciless by Danielle Vega

Remember when I told you that My Best Friend's Exorcism was what would happen if you combined Mean Girls  with The Exorcist?

Well, get comfy in your Friday sweatpants, everybody, because I have another one for you. Merciless by Danielle Vega follows a new girl- Sophia- trying to fit in at a new high school, which, as Mean Girls taught us, is basically like trying to live in a jungle. On her first day Sophia finds that, for whatever reson, the popular girls have taken a liking to her. Like any normal teenage girl, suspicious, she hesitantly spends time with them. For some reason (we don't get an explanation of why, except maybe because this is set in the deep south? I would have liked a little more back story on this part) these girls are weirdly religious. And by weirdly, I don't mean like "Yeah she grew up in an atheist home but now she goes to church three days a week" weirdly, I mean one of them "baptizes" Sophia in a school bathroom sink by mixing communion wine she caries in a flask into some water.

Whatever, I mean teenage girls are weird, right? Ok, well, that is just about the least weird thing that these bitches end up putting Sophia through by the end of the book. They get it in their weirdly religious heads that another girl is possessed by a demon and that they have to save her, which of course they tangle Sophia into as well. If you've seen The Exorcist then you know that these things can get a little... Physically and psychologically demanding of all involved. But hey- who could be more level headed and able to keep cool under the stress of fighting Satan's army than a teenage girl, right?

This was a fun, fast read. I read the entire thing in a day (it was a TOTAL ACCIDENT that I stayed up till 3:00 AM, I swear.) and was ready to read the sequel as soon as I finished. (I didn't though, I was a good girl and went to sleep. Mostly because I don't have the sequel yet.) The attempt to be Mean Girls -esque was a little intense and obvious, but that didn't take away from the fun of the story. I also would have liked more interaction with the supposedly possessed girl and our protagonist before the exorcism began, but I absolutely loved how Sophia's back story was laid out for us slowly over the course of the book.

The final breakdown:

The Book

Fun read overall, very inventive for a YA horror.

🌹🌹🌹

The Writing

Fast paced, but as I said, I wish it hadn't been so overtly Mean Girls . Some areas even felt word for word.

🕯️🕯️🕯️

Readability

I read the thing in twelve hours, I forgot to eat at one point. This score was pretty obvi.

🕰️🕰️🕰️🕰️🕰️