The Unraveling of Mercy Louis

The Unraveling of Mercy Louis (2015) is a contemporary suspense novel for young adults by Keija Parssinen. Nominated for the 2016 ALA Alex Award, the book tells the story of a young girl subjected to a modern-day witch-hunt by her jealous and vindictive peers. Parssinen chose the subject matter because she wanted to explore the issues of peer pressure and social anxieties plaguing twenty-first-century America. Parssinen studied English at Princeton University, where she graduated cum laude. Although she mainly writes books, her short stories and essays have featured in prominent publications. The Unraveling of Mercy Louis is Parssinen’s second novel.

The book is set in Port Sabine, a small refinery town in Texas. Here, religion means everything. Everyone cares about following tradition and religious teachings. Evangelicalism is widespread. The townsfolk judge people who seem strange or who don’t fit in, and they don’t tolerate anything taboo. It’s the kind of place where rumors spread quickly, and everyone knows everybody else’s business.

The protagonist, Mercy Louis, is the town basketball champion and a star athlete. Everyone has high expectations for her future, but Mercy just wants to get through high school and feel loved. Her mother, Charmaine, abandoned her, though she still writes Mercy cryptic letters all the time. Mercy can’t make sense of these letters, and she’s angry because Charmaine never explained why she abandoned her.



Mercy’s grandmother, Evelia, makes Mercy’s home life difficult. She claims that it is her God-given duty to protect Mercy from anything unclean or unvirtuous since Charmaine is a terrible mother. Mercy is not allowed to date, and she doesn’t have many friends. This is a problem because Mercy is crushing on a fellow student whom she plans to date.

To make matters worse, Evelia thinks that the world is about to end. She wants God to save Mercy after the Rapture. She tells Mercy that, unless she listens to God’s every commandment, she will die and go to Hell. Mercy partly believes her, but she is also worried that Evelia isn’t in her right mind anymore.

Mercy has one friend, Annie. She feels that she can tell Annie anything. Sometimes, Mercy thinks that she is attracted to Annie, but she wonders if she is just confused because Annie is her only friend. Annie knows that Mercy fancies her. Though she encourages Mercy’s affection, she sleeps around with other people, and she makes sure that Mercy knows it.



Annie is unusual for a girl in Port Sabine because she is promiscuous. In this town, girls who have sex before marriage must wear special clothes marking them out as used. Sex before marriage is a grave sin and all girls must have chastity rings. The boys are treated very differently, encouraged to date whom they want. Mercy and the other girls want to change things, but they don’t know where to start.

Everything changes for Mercy and the residents of Port Sabine when the cops find an abandoned infant in a dustbin. Things like this don’t happen in Port Sabine, and no one knows how to react. The police feel that someone at Mercy’s school is responsible. They believe that a teenage girl got pregnant and abandoned her baby.

The townsfolk try to go on as normal, but nothing is normal. Mercy collapses at her next basketball game, which sends Evelia into a tailspin. Evelia is convinced that God is punishing everyone for the abandoned infant. Until the perpetrator comes forward, the town is cursed. No one wants to believe Evelia, but when other girls get sick, hysteria spreads through the town.



Some people wonder if a previous environmental disaster is responsible for the sickness. A local plant exploded, contaminating the town’s water supply and farms a few years ago. Some residents have been left permanently disabled. The basketball coach, Illa, spends her time coaching the team and looking after her mother who got sick after the accident. She is convinced that pollution is responsible, but no one listens to her.

Meanwhile, Evelia gets the town behind her prophecies. It becomes a modern-day witch-hunt where everyone’s activities are scrutinized. No one is any closer to working out who is responsible for the dead baby, and the suspicion is crippling the town. The townsfolk don’t talk about anything else, and the basketball team suffers.

At the end of the book, the mystery remains unsolved. Mercy uses her influence as the star basketball player to convince residents to treat the girls better. She resolves matters with her mother and it is likely they will see more of each other. Mercy understands why Charmaine felt pressured to leave her behind, and they both vow to never let something like this happen again. They rally around Evelia to look after her in her old age. Illa and the other women enjoy their newfound respect.