Colleen Hoover:
Verity
Colleen Hoover’s debut thriller was the first one of her books I read and I was not disappointed. I highly recommend reading this if you’re looking for something short, easy, and entertaining. Lowen is hired to finish a book series for the now comatose author Verity, moving into her home and bonding with her family. While sorting through Verity’s office, Lowen finds her autobiography which is full of dark confessions. Haunted by a lingering dread, she realizes this dream writing gig may not be the opportunity it seemed. From the first gory scene, this thriller pulls you in and will have you staying up late to finish it.
At the end, Lowen finds a letter Verity had tucked in the floorboards when she is packing to move out. The Letter vehemently claims the autobiography in her office was just a writing exercise to get her into the villain mentality for her book series. It was all a lie. She was just retelling events from her real life through the lens of an alter ego. But was the autobiography really fake?
The optimist in me wanted to believe the Letter, but there were just too many inconsistencies.
Jeremy’s Behavior:
The way Verity depicts Jeremy in the Letter as an evil, vengeful man does not match his personality/actions from the rest of the book; including how he’s portrayed in the autobiography. He’s an authentically good person. Such a good person that (according to Verity) he’s shelling out thousands of dollars to give his daughters’ murderer high quality medical care. Along with paying for her care, Jeremy had such a visceral reaction when Lowen gave him the autobiography there is no way he had already read it before. Altogether, Jeremy’s behavior indicates he didn’t know about the autobiography and the Letter is lying.
Verity’s Reasoning:
Verity contradicts herself in the Letter, explaining she is faking her comatose state out motivated by her fear of Jeremy. But if she really was so terrified of him, why would she risk giving herself away by fucking with Lowen? And why didn’t she just leave? Someone (presumably Jeremy) had deleted the copy of the autobiography from her computer, and she writes she is only staying until she can destroy the hard copy. At another point she claims she’s just staying for Crew. But if the autobiography was all fake, why risk everything to destroy it? Verity would only have stayed, playing out her fucked up charade to get rid of incriminating evidence.
1. Would you believe that so much tragedy could happen to one person organically?
2. Would you read someone’s journal if you found it?
3. Is it a red flag Jeremy was one of Lowen’s fans and lied about Verity picking her to ghostwrite?
4. Do Jeremy and Lowen really have feelings for each other, or are they just bonded by their shared trauma?
5. Which do you think is true: the Letter or the Autobiography?