"Be humble under the powerful hand of God," Alexis says. I shift my attention back to her, wondering where she found the ridiculous passage she's reading. It sounds like something from a bad horror movie. 
 That about sums everything up. This had the feel of a cheesy slasher / horror movie aimed toward a teen audience. Maybe something similar to Jennifer's Body. 
 That seems to have about the same tone as The Merciless. I think because I'm an adult, the book seemed to miss the mark for me. Perhaps if I was among the target audience for this I would have found myself more engaged. 
 The real problem is that these characters have about as much depth as a teaspoon. This was all just plot and no character development. Thus, these characters are relegated to little more than props to push the plot forward. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like main characters shouldn't fall into the category of "plot device." The protagonist, Sofia, has the personality of a plank of wood. Seriously, she's so bland that she makes Saltines seem glamorous. There was also this strange romantic angle thrown in with Charlie. It was so poorly developed that I'm not sure why it was even left in the final draft. He even says at one point "You're not like other girls..." then kissing etc. SOOOOOOO CLICHE! It makes no sense! At this point in the story he's talked to her about 2 1/2 times! He doesn't know anything about her and neither to the readers! 
 I get the point the author was trying to make (besides scary) is that teenage girls are like a pack of savage animals. If the leader of the group turns rabid, the rest will soon follow into the insanity. It's a pack mentality. The author succeeded in fully showing just how clueless these girls were (view spoiler)[I mean they printed the rites of exorcism off Wikipedia, for Pete's sake! (hide spoiler)] which only made their actions all the more disturbing. The problem is that this whole story felt like a half step. It should have either gone further into full on horror or it should have drifted further over to character driven YA. Overall, this could have been really good if there was more effort made in character development. 
 P.S. The gore was pretty decent though... (view spoiler)[Riley gets crucified and her heart ripped out! Holy Smokes! (hide spoiler)]