This is my book review on Verity, written by Colleen Hoover who I am sure is a squillionaire by now. How tf did she get so famous? Tiktok really does have it’s favourites.
So as a bookworm, I did want to get my hands on it to see what the whole hooha about Hoover was about, so I started with Verity – apparently the easiest one to read out of all of them.
You: Should I read Verity?
Yes, so you can get a taste of Colleen Hoover’s writing.
No, if you actually read a lot and need a good story. I do read a lot, so I have read many good stories. And this one is pretty shit, tbh.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS AND LOTS OF SWEARS
What’s good about Verity?
- Very easy to read. If you don’t read a lot, this is the one to get you into it. It’s suspenseful, because you want to know what happens, and not many characters so easy to keep track of everything.
What’s bad about Verity?
Omg. Get ready for a /rant/. This book actually frustrated me. I felt like the choices the main character Lowen made were unrealistic, the storyline was unrealistic, everything was so fucking unrealistic. Like I’m not saying that sci-fi can’t exist, like I totally accept it in your book if people can fly and someone flew to the moon. I will not accept it if it is set in REALITY and then your characters jumped to the moon. No. No! Also this book gets me HEATED so I’m about to get a bit sweary.
- The main character’s name is Lowen Ashleigh and she is 32 years old. What sort of bullshit name is that, are you sure she’s not 3?? That kind of name is what a millennial mum (like CoHo…? Is this a self insert..?) would choose for herself or her kid. Fuck off her last name is Ashleigh!
- Lowen is an author and wants to turn down a huge contract where they offer for her to keep writing a huge franchise for a lot of money, even though she is going to be homeless. There is the /principle/, but what kind of author doesn’t care if no-one reads her books and doesn’t want their books to sell? They don’t even want her to ghostwrite. That’s like an author’s wet dream.
- Lowen spends 2 weeks hiding in this perfect man’s house reading notes from the last author (his paralysed braindead wife) and somehow this perfect hot man falls in love with her.
I cannot tell if Colleen wants me to believe that Lowen is so beautiful, so humble that she doesn’t realise it herself that this hot man can fall in love with her while she sits in his sick wife’s office freaking the fuck out about everything. They have like, 2 conversations. Or, if Colleen wants me to believe that the perfect hot man is so nice, so loving that he can fall in love with this mousy, debbie downer author that he can see has actually got a really beautiful soul even though she’s distracted by sitting in his sick wife’s office freaking the fuck out about everything. - This nice hot man is perfect. Honestly, I thought the twist was that the nice hot man was the villain. Nope. He actually is just a nice, hot, lonely man and perfect father who spends every day showing his partner how much he loves and appreciates them. Disgusting.
- Somehow, the sick wife named Verity has managed to fool all the doctors, nurses and medical personnel that she braindead.
I am not a doctor, but I have watched all the seasons of House, so I’m basically qualified. And I am pretttyyy sure the doctors can tell if your brain has activity or not. In fact, on House they can even see if their patients are lying by what parts of their brains light up. I am prettyy sure it’s a thing where they say ‘your wife’s brain is perfectly fine. She should be able to speak’. I don’t think it is possible to fake a brain injury, they play all sorts of sounds and images to get reactions from the brain. - Somehow, Verity can walk and talk despite spending 12 hours lying in bed.
Once again in my professional medical opinion, I feel like your muscles atrophy if you spent all day lying in bed. You would also be in incredible pain as this happens. They might also be pumping you full of painkillers as they think you are brain dead and that your muscles are atrophying. So how tf is she able to just start running and yelling?? - For me, the twist at the end was lame- it was all made up?? Or she is one big con artist?? Don’t really care. Both are super unsatisfying. The most undeveloped way to end a story is ‘it was all a dream’ or ‘and it was all made up’. It’s just super lazy – a lazy way to wrap things up, a lazy way to have a ‘twist’.
So yes. I was not impressed and am not busting to read any more of her stories for a while, although I see a lot of people are obsessed with the Ana Huang ‘Twisted Love’ series now, which is going on my #BookTok list because I am easily influenced.
P.S. Follow me on Goodreads! I’m always keen to know more bookworms.
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