Mercy by Rebecca Lim

Mercy by Rebecca Lim
Mercy #1
Release Date: October 28, 2010
Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books
Source: Publisher
Rating: Bland

There's something very wrong with me. I can't remember who I am or how old I am, or even how I got here. All I know is that when I wake up, I could be any one. It is always this way. There's nothing I can keep with me that will stay. It's made me adaptable. I must always re-establish ties. I must tread carefully or give myself away. I must survive.


Mercy doesn't realise it yet, but as she journeys into the darkest places of the human soul, she discovers that she is one of the celestial host exiled with fallen angel, Lucifer. Now she must atone for taking his side. To find her own way back to heaven, Mercy must help a series of humans in crisis and keep the unwary from getting caught up in the games that angels play. Ultimately she must choose between her immortal companion, Lucifer, and a human boy who risks everything for her love. - Goodreads

Mercy is about an angel named Mercy who takes over people’s bodies – kind of like the body snatchers – and she has trouble remembering what went on in her life before. Mercy takes over a body of a girl in a choir, who is staying with a host family whose daughter has gone missing, and Mercy sets about trying to help the son, Ryan, find his sister.

The first half of the book was extremely slow paced, and there wasn’t much happening. Ryan and Mercy spent a lot of time bickering before Ryan finally allowed Mercy to help him find his sister. After that, Mercy didn’t seem to be very helpful anyway. She spent a lot of time with her classmates practicing their songs, which I enjoyed, but like I said there wasn’t much action in the first half.

In the beginning, Mercy’s personality seemed to be all over the place. She would switch from being totally reserved to confident and flirty. I found this to be very annoying and also kind of awkward in parts. I would have liked to have seen some growth in her character, which we didn’t really see at all unfortunately. I wasn’t able to connect with Mercy in this book, and that was my main problem with the story and it made the book less enjoyable for me.

The ending definitely improved the book overall. There wasn’t too much action in the climax but what was there was well done and well written.

Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy Mercy as much as I thought I would, and while it did have the ending as a saving grace – no pun intended! – I wasn’t able to get sucked in. I will be reading the next book in the series, as I received the series for review and I am intrigued to find out what happens next after the cliffhanger ending.