Verity
Verity
By: Colleen Hoover
I’m in several book-lover Facebook groups and the past few weeks I had seen hundreds, I kid you not, posts about people reading this book, recommending this book, buying this book, marrying this book.
So I thought, I haven’t read Colleen Hoover yet, I guess I should do what everyone else is doing.
Well, I was a week late in my discernment because THEN I saw people commenting on the sexual content. One person even went so far as to call it a “porno.” By then it was too late. I had already finished it. And she’s not really that far off with her assessment.
If I had known ahead of time what this book contained, I would not have read it.
There are some qualifiers to that content but must be talked about in my Spoiler section below.
Summary
Here’s the rundown of the thriller storyline:
The book begins with Lowen waiting to cross a city street and seeing a man getting his skull crushed by a truck, getting his blood on her shirt. Just a typical Monday, amiright?
Cue handsome man who gives her the very shirt off his back for her and helps her calm down. (This is a romance/thriller after all…)
Now they can both go to their respective meetings.
Lowen is a struggling author who is about to meet with her agent and a client who has a job offer for her.
Surprise! It’s the shirt guy! His wife, Verity, also an author, was in a car accident and cannot, for whatever reason, finish her famous series and they want Lowen to ‘co-write’ it ‘with’ her.
Lowen agrees because she needs the money.
The ‘for whatever reason’ is: The wife is a vacant shell of a person who cannot walk or talk. In some sort of trance.
Oh also, they had twins who both died in recent months on separate occasions.
They are what shirt guy calls ‘chronics.’ “One terrible thing after another.” FORESHADOWING!
Lowen searches Verity’s book notes and discovers a manuscript, an apparent autobiography revealing the darkest feelings and secrets of Verity. And also a very descriptive play-by-play of her sex life with shirt guy.
The more Lowen learns about Verity, the more suspicious she is of the ‘tragedies’ happening in their lives. She no longer feels safe around Verity but is not sure how much she reveals to shirt guy. Because, they’re still married. Even though Lowen and shirt guy are stoking their forbidden love pretty hardcore.
“Things aren’t right in this house, and until he mistrusts that woman upstairs as much as I do, I have a feeling something else is going to happen.”
Suspense!
The Good
Per usual, the story would have been a lot better without the sexual content. I actually really liked the premise. I liked that I was uncertain what was really going on. I liked the ‘unsettled’ ending.
There was definitely dysfunction in this book but it wasn’t quite as messed up as Gone Girl.
I like that she named her Verity. I think there’s a discussion to be had about that and the ending.
Recommendation
I don’t recommend this book.
Considering how popular this book is, I think I’m in the minority. Apparently there is a niche for sexually graphic thrillers. So I guess if you like that, you’ll enjoy this book.
But if you like to keep things rated PG-13 (where the PG doesn’t stand for Pretty Graphic), then pass this one up and find something else.
Another thing that made it hard for me to read were the anecdotes of Verity’s mothering (also see spoilers for more details).
I don’t know if this is on par for Colleen Hoover or not, but you bet I’m gonna do a better job figuring that out before I start another one of her books.
If you want to explore my spoilers, keep scrolling, otherwise, you might as well just browse all my other reviews to find your next book!
Spoiler Comments
Okay.
This is a big spoiler.
I think some justify the graphic content by the end because they’re like- Oh! It’s ‘not real.’ After all, the manuscript isn’t a real autobiography. It’s Verity’s writing exercise to practice writing a villain’s voice. You take real life events but write the opposite of what you actually felt or thought in those moments.
Verity’s compiled writing exercises is intended to use to teach other writers.
So the encounters are not all real. Verity writes in a letter they find later- “You don’t think women actually think about sex that much, do you?”
But here’s the thing… why would anyone need to know that much about anyone’s sex life? Whether writing practice or not, there are plenty of other situations she could have written about.
Plus, we don’t really know if we can trust the letter she wrote later. She’s clearly a manipulative person so we don’t know what is the truth. It could all be real and she’s trying to cover her tracks by planting the fake letter.
In the same way, her descriptions of how she mothers her girls, who we really don’t know if she actually loves or not, are hard to read whether or not they are real. In the manuscript she talks of how she hates her twins because she can tell her husband loves them more than her. She tries to abort them with a wire hanger, among other things. After they’re born she leaves them in their crib and turns the monitor off, letting them cry all day.
As a woman who had a really hard time getting pregnant, miscarrying once, and having twin boys, those sections just really hit me the wrong way.
I like the concept of a manuscript of writing exercises misinterpreted as truth and wreaking havoc, but having to second guess if this woman is crazy enough to have written truth and leave a letter to counter her work that was exposed. It’s a good psychological thriller storyline.
But the execution of it was not enjoyable to read. I see now that she writes a lot of romance, so maybe that makes sense for some people, but I don’t need people to be sexually involved in thrillers to keep my attention.
Okay. I’m done complaining.
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