The Merciless

The Merciless is a young adult horror novel by Danielle Vega, published in 2014. It is set in a high school where the social order is considerably more dangerous than it first appears.

Sofia arrives at a new school wanting to be liked, so when a group of popular girls includes her in their plans, she goes along with them. The girls have a theory about Brooklyn, a loner who keeps to herself, and their theory is that something evil has taken up residence inside her. What they propose to do about it is an exorcism, held in private, with Sofia's participation. The novel follows her from the moment she agrees to take part, and the pressures that got her there are entirely ordinary: a new town, a lonely lunch hour, the wish to belong, and the slow realisation that she has joined a group which has settled on a remedy without consulting the person it is meant to save.

Vega writes the book as both a possession horror and a study of how teenage cruelty organises itself, and she never lets the reader assume that the religious explanation is the correct one.