The Voss family, a blended, unique family of seven. The Voss’ appear just like any other family, but on the inside each person has their own unique traits that lead them to live a very unique life. The community where the Voss family lives, knows they are unique after Merit’s father chose to purchase the local church and make it their family home. They are often judged in the community for their uniqueness, but little of the truth they know. Often it is to assume you know someone, but it is easy for one to hide the truth behind the four walls of their home. I believe that placing judgment on someone without knowing their home situation or family life is unfair. One can not know what a person is truly going through until they have walked in their shoes. Merit Voss, one of the four Voss children, has a very unique perspective on her family and the life inside her home. Merit seems to be the keeper of all secrets in her home. She tends to go unnoticed amongst her siblings and often feels as if she is just “there”. Because of this, Merit tends to keep quiet at home, and with being silent, she tends to hear more than she should. “This family is just as terrible as everyone in this town believes it to be. Maybe even worse. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the secrets and the lies. And I’m tired of being the one person in this house who has to hold onto all of them!”(190) The Voss house is packed with people and secrets, which Merit feels she has to hold onto for everyone. Her mother lives in the basement and has not come out since she overcame cancer, and caught her husband cheating on her with her nurse. Upstairs, her dad lives with her mothers nurse and Merit's now step mom, and their son Moby as well as Merit, her two siblings, and Sagan and Luck. “No one would be able to determine from the outside of our house that our family of seven includes an atheist, a home wrecker, an ex-wife suffering from a severe case of agoraphobia, and a teenage girl whose weird obsession borders on necrophilia”(21,22). All of these interesting traits that each person holds comes an interesting secret for Merit to keep. With such a variety of people living in the home, comes a variety of secrets. Each person living in the Voss home has their own secret that Merit is holding for them, but when pushed overboard by her family that doesn’t care about her and her abundance of other life challenges, she could no longer keep the secrets quiet. Merit chose to write everyone’s secrets in a letter, while she also consumed an abundance of alcohol, and 28 pills she stole from her mother attempting to blur her pain. Once the secrets were revealed, things flipped upside down in the Voss home. Everyone knew each other's truths and their family relationships changed drastically. Similar to the Voss’ every family has their own unique challenges and truths hidden within the walls of their home. The Voss’ were judged based on the outside appearance of their home/church, but truly no one in the community knew what it was like to live within the four walls of their home. This book serves as an important reminder as to why we shouldn’t judge someone unless we have walked in their shoes and experienced what they do. Merit alone, is a great reminder that we never truly know what one is going through and to be kind to everyone.