By Colleen Hoover
The good thing about sins is they don’t have to be atoned for immediately.
Colleen Hoover, Verity
This book. Oh my goodness this book. SPOILERS
Summary
Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer who is about to lose everything when she receives a call from her agent. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity, would like to hire Lowen to complete Verity’s last few books after Verity has been injured. He also invites Lowen to spend a few days at their house in order to review Verity’s notes.
Once Lowen arrives, she sets herself up in Verity’s office and is beginning to try to piece together the mass of papers when she discovers a manuscript. The problem was, this manuscript was not a draft of the next fiction bestseller. It was an autobiography.
Lowen is quickly engrossed in the manuscript-page after page of terrifying admissions about Verity, her relationship with Jeremy, and how her twins died. Lowen decides to keep this manuscript a secret from Jeremy in an attempt to save him from more heartache. But as their feelings for each other intensify, Lowen starts to notice that something in the house is not as it seems.
Verity, who it appeared was unable to move unaided, was turning her head to look at Lowen. Items that Lowen was sure she saw started to disappear. Verity appeared at the top of the stairs unaided. Was Lowen going crazy?
After Jeremy and Verity’s remaining child is injured, Lowen decides to give Jeremy the manuscript to read. He is incensed and immediately goes to Verity’s room to confront her. It is in this confrontation that it is revealed that Verity is not in fact injured, but had been faking it. Jeremy can not control his rage, and with the help of Lowen, kills his wife.
Months later, Lowen is pregnant with Jeremy’s child, they have moved out of state, and are returning to the old house to finish emptying it before their baby is due. When emptying Verity’s room, Lowen discovers a hidden space in the floor that hides a missing knife, photographs, and a letter written from Verity to Jeremy.
This letter details how the autobiography was a writing prompt to help Verity get into the mind of the villain for her books, that her children’s deaths were truly accidents, and why she was pretending to be so severely injured. It also details how Jeremy was already aware of the manuscript, and had attempted to kill Verity before her accident.
Not knowing what to make of this letter, Lowen decides to return it to the space under the floorboards, never to speak of it again.
My Thoughts
Plot
Like I said at the beginning of this post…This book. Oh my goodness this book. I finished this book in the matter of a few hours. It was creepy in so many ways. Like I finished the book, turned to my husband, and said “this book is fucked up. Amazing, but fucked up.” Do I think that the plot was believable-not particularly. I mean, professionals would have been able to tell if Verity was truly injured-also there are certain actions that humans do instinctually that Verity was able to train herself to not do. That being said, to me, it didn’t matter if the plot was believable because the book was so engaging.
One thing to note is that there is A LOT of sex in this book. I don’t mind smut books, but I don’t think that that is really what this was. I think that the sex scenes were there specifically to aid in character development, further the plot, and explore the relationship between Jeremy and Verity, and Jeremy and Lowen. If these scenes were removed, the book would have fallen flat.
Format
I read this book as a physical book rather than an audiobook. I don’t know if I would have enjoyed it as much as an audiobook, but it’s much easier to decide if a physical book would be better than to decide if an audiobook would be better. Since I have no real frame of reference, I can’t say if one would have been better than the other. That being said, this book is just over 300 pages and I was able to read it quite quickly.
Writing
Colleen Hoover is a goddess when it comes to writing. This book was engaging the entire way through. I just kept turning pages. One of the things that I loved was how obvious it was when we were in a section of the manuscript vs a section happening in real life. The way the characters spoke was just so different. Her descriptions were so jarring-making the reader feel as uneasy as Lowen did throughout the book. I loved her description of the house-it was just enough to make it seem imposing without being terrifying. And when describing Lowen’s interactions with Verity, I felt like I might be going crazy too! While I normally hate unreliable narrators in stories, I think this one was done quite well, because you never knew who to believe throughout the entirety of the book.
Characters
Normally I break the characters up into individuals to talk about them separately, but I would consider this book an ensemble cast. If one character was not strong, the entire thing would have fallen apart. Lowen, you could tell, was kind of drifting through the world. Jeremy was falling apart. Verity had the mind of a child-or a psychopath-or a loving mother…you never quite know. I thought that each character was developed super well-and especially considering that by the end we aren’t sure of what’s true, I like how the basis of the characters stayed the same regardless of their actions. The side characters were even great. I really liked Alice, the nurse, and Crew was an adorable little boy. The agent (whose name I forgot) I wasn’t fond of, but was still written extremely well.
Final Thoughts
I thoroughly loved this book. I would absolutely recommend it to anyone and everyone who likes thrillers, unreliable narrators, or just wants something amazingly fucked up to read. Five stars.
Jenn V. Reads 