VERITY BY COLLEEN HOOVER (AN IN-DEPTH REVIEW)

Is Verity worth the hype it gets? Read on to find out!

Synopsis

Lowen is given the opportunity to continue another authors series: Verity. But whilst she is looking through Verity's paperwork to finish the series, she finds something she wasn't meant to see. Now she finds herself stuck in the house of someone who may not be who she pretends to be...

Thoughts

a page turner

This book was definitely not what I was expecting despite the dark cover. I was left shocked at the events I witnessed in this book. And they never stopped. Once you thought it couldn't get any more twisted, you best think again! But no doubt that this book is definitely a thriller. It will have you on the edge of your seat, wide-eyed, heart pounding. This is one of the few books that made it hard for me to put the book down. It kept me turning the pages, chapter after chapter, even though I usually take frequent breaks whilst reading. To emphasise that, I'm a reader who constantly checks my progress throughout reading. Well, this book did not let that happen because I was so eager to find out what happens next. Imagine finally remembering to check your progress only to find you're already at the end of the book!

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Lets talk characters.

I did not have any liking toward any of the characters. They were all very weird in some way.

Lowen was just not okay? To list some things that make me think that:

• she kept wanting to read what Jeremy was like intimately.

• she caressed Verity's bite marks on the bed frame.

• she tried to recreate their scene with a pillow.

• she bit down on Verity's bite marks .

• she willingly got pregnant after knowing Jeremy for only a few days (not to mention with a married man.)

• she was so quick to tell Jeremy how to kill Verity rather than call the police like a normal human!

• she started screaming when seeing Verity moving in the baby monitor instead of taking out her phone and recording???

• she ATE the paper with Jeremys name on it instead of flushing it like she did the rest?

Jeremy was so suspicious:

• he apparently happened to bump into Lowen by accident, helped her clean up and went to the same meeting as her.

• coincidence that he happened to show up with the job offer when Lowen was struggling financially?

• when offering her Verity's job, he didn't give her a choice and made her accept which shows his willingness for her to come over to his.

• he lied to Lowen by saying Verity read her books whilst it was actually him who read them?

• he got Lowen pregnant so soon (almost like he wanted kids with her so he would have an excuse to stay with her as he knew Verity would soon be out of the picture)

• how did he read the manuscript so fast?

• why was he suddenly so sure that Verity was faking after Lowen just gave him the manuscript whereas before he completely rejected that idea.

• why was he taking care of Verity if he knew all along that she killed their daughter? (almost as if he was waiting for Lowen to come along, read the manuscript and support him in killing Verity so that he could feel better about it and justify his revenge. This would also explain why his very first resort was to kill her before she even had the chance to say anything.)

Team Manuscript or Letter?

Before the letter I was 100% sure the manuscript was real. But whoa. The letter really f*cks with your mind! I was so stuck in the middle of the two. Verity is literally a mastermind at manipulation!

Evidence for the manuscript:

• when Lowen asked Jeremy how him and Verity met, he confirmed it happened how it said in the manuscript.

• Chastin had a deep scar on her cheek (from Veritys attempt at trying to kill her with a hanger in her womb)

• Harper was born with Asperger's due to Veritys alcohol consumption during pregnancy (another one of her attempts to kill the babies.)

• Jeremy confirmed that Crew said Verity told him to hold his breath before the canoe tipped over.

• When Lowen gave Jeremy the manuscript, he said "Where did you find this?" Not "What is this?" (he already read it and knew the truth.)

• Crew said Verity told him not to tell Lowen anything (she is afraid Lowen knows the truth from the manuscript and is trying to confirm it.)

• Crew bit down on a knife to prevent himself from telling Lowen anything about the day at the lake (shows the extent Verity told him to go to stop him from confirming the truth.)

• Verity faked her paralysis to escape Jeremy confronting her about what she did.

• Verity wrote the letter as a cover up because she knew Lowen found out the truth and so that Lowen could only live in guilt and not happiness with Jeremy after they killed her.

Evidence for the letter:

• Jeremy kept the manuscript in a place where Lowen would easily be able to find it and hid it from Verity (so Lowen would help him kill her.)

• he 'read' the manuscript so fast after Lowen gave it to him because he was impatient to finally be able to get rid of Verity.

• Verity was so afraid of Jeremy that she had to fake her paralysis to stay alive (proven by the fact that he killed her as soon as he 'found out' she wasn't paralysed.)

• Verity kept a knife under her floorboards to protect herself from Jeremy.

• Verity had a picture of her daughters under her bed which suggests that she actually loved them.

• Verity had been looking for the manuscript before someone read it and took it as the truth because the boxes in the basement had been rummaged through, as she said in the letter.

In conclusion, after I read the book I was gravitating towards the letter being the truth. Probably because Jeremy was so so sus. But now, I think I believe the manuscript because I don't think she would have been able to write such gruesome things about her daughters as fiction, if she really was a loving mother as she claimed to be. I think if it really was a work of fiction, she would have used different names for the girls. Definitely not the names of her own daughters. So yeah. I think she was guilty. However, that doesn't mean Jeremy and Lowen were any better as people. They were all so very twisted.

a 5 star read!

Do you agree with my thoughts?

Are you team Manuscript or team Letter?

Leave a comment and lets discuss!