Verity || Whose Truth Is The Lie?

Verity by Colleen Hoover(2018)

_{“Some families are lucky enough to never experience a single tragedy. But then there are those families that seem to have tragedies waiting on the back burner. What can go wrong, goes wrong. And then gets worse,” (Hoover 31).}

Verity was originally published on 7th December 2018. It is about 220 pages long and has twenty-five chapters, excluding the sub-chapters. It's a psychological thriller with immersive and borderline genres of romance, suspense and a bit of modern-day goth.

Summary of the Book

Things aren’t panning out so well for Lowen Ashleigh. Her mother is recently dead, her books aren’t selling, she’s about to be evicted from her apartment and is in debt. By a single stroke of luck and a strange meeting with her agent, she’s hired by Jeremy Crawford, husband of a bestselling author, Verity Crawford, to complete the remaining books in her successful series which is famous for being written from the villain’s point of view.

Due to the intensity of the work ahead of her, Lowen moves into Crawford’s house to sort through Verity’s years of research, notes and outlines in her disorganised office. However, Lowen stumbles on a manuscript that turns out to be Verity’s autobiography. In each chapter, she learns chilling truths to the brain-dead woman upstairs. Should she share with Jeremy who she's developed a fondness for, these disturbing confessions or carry them with her to the grave?

My Review and Rating

Hmmm...where do I start? As I said, I was drawn to this book because not only was it recommended by a friend, but it seemed to be going crazy on Booktok, so while I wasn’t keen on the hype, I was bored and so I closed my eyes and clicked on a random book. It turned out to be Verity and so I termed it as fate, and started reading.

It’s been such a while since I read any psychological thriller so I wasn’t prepared for the shocking revelations in the book. I was on the edge of my seat and had chills down my spine at various points. All of these made Verity a memorable book for me. I’m the type to deliberately introduce suspense to a book I read by pausing at the brink of climax to do something else. To ponder and to mentally watch the book play out in my head for a while before going back. The fact that this book evoked these long-awaited feelings in me gives it double stars.

But of course, there are the not-so-great parts to this book. And as much as I love it, I couldn’t help noticing.

First are the characters, Lowen and Jeremy. They didn’t do it for me as the strong leads they’re supposed to be. There was a lot of mystery on Lowen who is a loner and has an aversion to people. And so all through the book, I waited to understand why and I was disappointed. Apart from threadbare insights, there was no big revelation into why she was the way she was. Why she didn't like people, and have more insight into the books she wrote that were similar to Verity’s. Which was the prime reason she was hired in the first place.

Then there’s Jeremy. The tragedy that had happened to his family in the space of one year is enough to leave even the most apathetic person scarred. Losing his daughters and even his wife, to an extent. And while the book tried to portray that he was grieving, I just didn’t see it. It was supposed to look like he wanted things to be normal for the sake of his five-year-old son, but he was way too put together for someone who had gone through such an amount of tragedy. Too much so.

A bit of a sidetrack, but the little peanut-cracker brunch or Lowen and Crew. Why is the very thing that killed a member of your family still lying about in the house, enough to be eaten? What about the triggers??

And then there was the ending. I get the attempt to be vague and mysterious. But that only works when the readers have an insight into that vagueness. The letter that is the most disturbing clincher to everything left me dissatisfied. Apart from the fact that it was extremely long, the time frame in which it was supposedly written didn’t cut it enough to make it realistic. And all the lies, half-truths and manipulations. Who is lying and who is telling the truth? Who is really the villain in the story and what damage has all of this caused? Most of all, who truly is VERITY??

Since reading Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us, I knew her books were not the type for the faint-hearted. She isn’t my best author but she does have a delectable mind and I admire her for it. I get the whole chilling mystery layout she was trying to portray as I’ve seen it successfully played out in some other books, but she didn’t quite achieve it in my opinion.

Overall, I’ll give Verity 4.2/5 stars. It’s an amazing book and the little discrepancies aside, you’re sure to love it.