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Verity — by Colleen Hoover
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Intro: Verity is a psychological thriller novel written by Colleen Hoover. It is her first thriller. The book was published for the first time on the 7th of December in 2018.
Plot: Verity is set in modern times and is about Lowen Ashleigh whose dream is to become an author. One day when Lowen is on her way to a job meeting, she witnesses a man die. Lowen is waiting for the green light, just like him, although he crossed the street too soon and got hit by a truck. She immediately jumped after him, hoping she would be able to save him, but could not get hold of him before he fell under the truck. The next thing she heard was his skull popping like a champagne cork. His blood splattered all over Lowen’s white shirt and she froze.
Suddenly Lowen feels a touch on her arm. She looks up and there is a man, a stranger. He asks her if she's hurt and looks at her shirt. He askes her one more time and she explains that it is not her blood on her shirt. Lowen can feel the blood on her chest and on her lips. He lays an arm on her lower back and gesticulates towards a café right across the street. Lowen heads over to the ladies but the door is closed, so the stranger leads her to the men’s bathroom. They walk in and he heads straight to the wash basin without locking the door after himself. He helps her clean up by handing her paper towels, and then gives her his shirt. Lowen sees his undershirt and sees that he is muscular. He is also taller than her which means that she is more or less going to disappear in his shirt. Lowen does not want to attend a meeting like that, but what other choice does she have.
Lowen and the man start to talk about how they are feeling about what had just happened, as they exchange their names. The man says that he has been through worse. Lowen stares at him confused about what could have been worse than seeing a man's head getting crushed. Jeremy then answers that he had to drag up his eight-year-old daughter from a lake five months ago. Jeremy asks Lowen what she has been through and as Lowen answers that her mother died last week, she feels like it is nothing compared to what Jermey has been through. She thanks Jeremey for the help and leaves the toilet and the café when she sees an engagement ring on his left hand.
As Lowen is on her way to her job meeting with Phantom Press and Corey, her agent and her ex- boyfriend, she hears Jeremey’s voice behind her. He also has a meeting on the fourteenth floor, with Lowen Asleigh.
At the meeting the editor of Phanthem Press, their lawyer, and of course their client Jeremy Crawford are attending. They present a job offer to Lowen. One of their writers is unavailable to write because of medical reasons, therefore they need another writer who writes in the same genre, to complete the book series. The original writer is Verity Crawford. Crawford as in Jeremy Crawford, was it Jeremy's wife? Lowen thinks about the offer and it is well paid, although she feels like she is incapable of finishing Verity’s work. Jeremy tries to convince Lowen to accept the job offer, and after much consideration Lowen does. She is now headed to Verity’s and Jeremy's home in Vermont to gather information at Verity’s office.
As she arrives at the house she is greeted by their son Crew, a mini Jeremy. Jermey gives Lowen a house tour and recommends that she stays for at least two days. These two days quickly extend to weeks. As Lowen goes through Verity’s stuff, she finds something. A manuscript written by Verity, and it is grotesque. Everytime Lowen reads it she feels sick to her stomach because of the horrible things and events Verity writes about. Killing her own kids? Not even loving them? Lowen cannot believe her eyes. As she reads this Lowen starts to fear Verity even though she is medically paralyzed and cannot even speak, but is she really though, what if she is faking? Lowen speaks to their son Crew who says he talked to his mother. Was he delusional or was he right? The longer Lowen stays in that house the more certain she is that Verity is faking her condition.
Lowen feels like she wants to protect Jeremy and his son from the devil of a wife that he has, so she sticks around. But that is not the only reason. Lowen and Jeremy slowly get closer and start to feel intense feelings for each other. He wants her to stay and Lowen wants to stay; it is not right but they don't care.
One day Lowen decides to show the manuscript to Jeremy, little does she know that he has already read it and is in fact the cause of Verity’s accident and condition. Jeremy tried to kill his wife when he found Verity’s manuscript the first time, but had failed. Lowen is certain that Verity is faking everything about her being paralyzed. Lowen later on tells Jermey her theory and he does not think that is possible, but after a while he starts to think more and more about it. Could it maybe be true?
Later in the book Lowen and Jermey are upstairs in Verity's room and Jeremy threatens to go to the police if she doesn't speak up and tell the truth. Lowen and Jermey cannot believe their eyes when Verity opens her eyes and lifts herself to a sitting position on the bed. She really was faking it all. Jeremy is in a fog of rage and can not think or talk clearly. Verity tries to tell him that everything is a huge misunderstanding, but he is in no position to hear her out. Instead he acts on his emotions, his range and grief of losing his daughters due to Verity. He grips her throat and plans on strangling her but Lowen stops him, telling him that if he kills her that way, Crew will lose his father. She instead suggests that Jeremy should force her to vomit, because then they can make the murder look like inhalation pneumonia and avoid a criminal investigation. Jeremy does so, and Verity dies gruesomely, choking on her own vomit.
One of the last pages is about a letter Lowen finds once Verity is dead and as they are moving out of that house to start a new life together. Lowen is upstairs in Verity’s room making sure they haven't forgotten anything and then finds a letter. A letter that “explains” everything. The grotesque manuscript was only an exercise for writing a better thriller and getting in the villain's point of view; none of it happened, according to Verity. But could she really be trusted? How will they know if it's real or not? Verity had written this letter for Jeremy to find when he had found her manuscript the first time.However Jermey never found the letter. The only one who knows about the letter is Lowen, and she doesn't know what to believe, was it true or not? Did she participate in killing an innocent woman, wife, and mother –– or an evil one? She will never find out, and Jermey will never find out about the letter.
Major themes: This book is very complex and may be confusing in terms of what you should feel like while reading it. However some themes that occur in this book are definitely grief, rage and relationships. Grief is what brings Jeremy and Lowen together, damage attracts damage. They talk about what they had been through and felt for each other from that moment in the bathroom before the job meeting. Grief is what Jeremy had felt the last years before he met Lowen, grief made him do what he did. But also rage, because rage drove him to actually do what he did. Lowen also felt grief, grief for him and Crew. Then she felt anger, she was disgusted by Verity and did not really stop Jeremy from killing her. Lastly, relationships. Lowen and Jeremy created a relationship from the first day they met on the street, and that relationship kept on growing stronger As Jeremy's relationship with Verity drifted. It is a book about two people who meet and how one of them leaves the partner he had.
Genre and style: This book represents various genres such as drama, romance and a dose of psychological fiction thriller. We get to see Jermey and Lowen fall in love, and how Jermey falls out of love with Verity. The reason he falls out of love is because of the horrifying manuscript, and that is the psychological thriller part in the book. As well as the ending, but the killing of Verity is driven by the manuscript as well.The book is written in casual language and with believable dialogues. The language is very graphic because of the descriptions of the romance and of the thriller parts.
Development history: On the Youtube Channel: “Bettysbookslist” in an interview released in 2022, Colleen Hoover tells about her writing, and her writing process. Betty asks Hoover what gives her basic ideas to write her books, whether she is inspired by her family, people she knows, etc. Hoover then answers that she collects inspiration and ideas everywhere, and when you have your imagination as a writer or as someone who would like to become a writer, you kind of find inspiration in everything. Although she says that she really tries to avoid using anything from her own life. She says that none of her love stories are based on her own relationships, and that Verity is very much fiction. Her family said that they didn't understand where the romance in Verity came from because Colleen Hoover is not a romantic person, not even with her husband. Her family would read the psychotic parts of Verity, and recognize Hoover because of that. Towards the end of the interview Hoover says that she wrote Verity from Lowen’s perspective and never was in Jeremy’s perspective, and that the only thing she wrote from Verity’s perspective was her manuscript.
Publications history: Hachette Book Group is the publisher. Verity was first published as an eBook in 2018, on the 7th of December, and a few years later became available worldwide in paperback. Soon after the book was published it spent multiple weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, selling almost 900 000 copies in e-book and trade paperback formats. The book became Hoover's first thriller.
Reception: There are many different opinions about this book. There is no kidding that the “killing your kids" part was harsh, but later when Verity explains it all in the letter, many readers report that they don't believe her In the “Bettysbookslist” interview, Hoover said that she herself doesn't know what to believe, but if she had to choose she would say that Verity is evil. However, this doesn't clearly stop fans and people reading the book from making up their own theories (and that's the best thing about books. You get to create your own reality).
Awards and nominations: In 2019 “Verity” was nominated in “Goodreads Choice Awards”, but it did not win the award. Some of Hoover’s other books have been nominated and won.
External links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF96O6qQNNE