BOOK REVIEW: Verity by Colleen Hoover

An unpopular opinion? I don't know, maybe....

It took me two and half years of hosting my podcast, Speaking LITerally, for my co-host, Liz, and I to finally take the plunge and read a Colleen Hoover book. Verity is what we went with as it seemed more aligned to our preferred reading genres, and we decided to take our options to the air in our October Podcast episode. So if you want to know what our Podcast book club thought, definitely take a listen. Speaking LITerally is available wherever you listen to all your favorite podcasts.

Anyways, my personal thoughts are mixed. Did I like Verity? Um, it was ok. Am I knocking down the doors to my local bookstores to get more Colleen Hoover books? No. Will I read another CoHo book? Not anytime soon. And, yes this is with the knowledge that Verity is not like her other books. Even with that knowledge, I have no desire at the current moment to read anything else. Ironically, my 17 year old, senior in high school son has a close female friend who reads Colleen Hoover frequently, and I have had several conversations with her. So, at least until May when they graduate, I can ask her how the books are.

The premise of Verity was promising. A young struggling author seems to get the opportunity to be the ghostwriter for a widely popular author, Verity, who is unable to finish her series. Struggling to make a decision, the money seals the deal, and she moves into the author’s house for several weeks to “research” the series, look at the author's notes and outlines in order to be able to finish writing the books. The issue is that Verity is lying in a coma in an upstairs bedroom, Verity’s husband seems to have a thing for her, and there is Verity’s son and two dead daughters.

Where do I begin? The book starts to a bang, I’ll give COHO that. The stage is set from page one to feel sorry for our main character, Lowen. The woe-is-she persona is strong. But, unfortunately, I never connected with her, and she kinda drove me crazy. However, if COHO was going for creating a cast of characters that are all a little off and have some concerning, sociopathic tendencies, she delivered on that. But Lowen was my least favorite. Same issues with Jeremy, Verity’s husband, though. He has some serious issues and I think labeling him “morally gray” just doesn’t do it justice. But, I guess like calls to like. I just didn’t like!

It’s what you do when you’ve experienced the worst of the worst. You seek out people like you…people worse off than you…and you use them to make yourself feel better about the terrible things that have happened to you.

The book overall is supposed to be that mystery/thriller genre which is not what COHO typically writes, so kudos to her for stepping out of her comfort genre. I will say that there were some amazingly creepy scenes. Maybe creepy isn’t the right word. Suspenseful? I’ll try to list them without giving any spoilers, but if IYKYK.

Creepy factor on a scale of 1-5:

• The staring through the windows - 3

• Crew’s behaviors - 4  (Crew is Verity and Jeremy’s young son)

• The character standing at the top of the stairs - 5

• Nurse April - 3

• The extra bonus chapters - 5

• The sleepwalking - 4

Now, just because I didn’t really care for the characters, I do respect the difficulty that it must be for Lowen to try to dissect someone’s life in order to write their books without being able to communicate with that person. Plus, the little autobiographical story that Lowen finds hidden is what causes Lowen to enter into her downward spiral of doubt and paranoia and builds the tension and suspense for the rest of the book.

Alternating chapters between Lowen’s reality with chapters of Verity’s manuscript break up the chronological plot by providing the reader nuggets of information about Verity and Jeremy’s life, marriage, the death of their children, everything. But as it comes in small, controlled doses, Lowen begins to doubt what is true and the fear grows. Throughout the progression of the plot, we see Lowen’s character evolve, or spiral, into the murky waters of trying to decipher the truth.

There is a nice little twist at the end that puts everything into question. As the reader, we are meant to question what the truth is. So, if you are looking for a book that has a pretty bow tying up the ending, you are not going to get it here. Typically, I don’t like not knowing for sure, but I think the extra chapters made up my mind on what I think the truth is. I’ll keep my opinions to myself. (If you really want to know. I highly encourage you to listen to our Book Club Podcast. We all have a different hypothesis.)

My mother used to say that houses have a soul, and if that is true, the soul of Verity Crawford’s house is as dark as they come.

Where does this land on my bookshelf?

Middle shelf. Probably on the lower end of it. I didn’t not like it, I just wasn’t like “oh, wow. Everyone needs to read this one!” It definitely made me think and react, but I couldn’t connect with Lowen, and I just thought every other character was a little too crazy. The tension and suspense was successfully created in how Lowen engaged with Jeremy and those in the house as she read more and more of Verity’s manuscript. And the doubt as to the truth at the end was well established. Literally, it could go either way. At the end of the day, I can say that I have read a COHO book, even if I may not read another one for quite some time.

Please leave me a comment, especially if you have read Verity. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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If you are really bored, you can read about some of my personal adventures in life raising two teenagers, commentating on professional wrestling shows and loving a husband who is fighting Chronic Myeloid Leukemia and all the lesson I learn along the way. Educate This.