Colleen Hoover:
Verity
Colleen Hoover’s debut thriller was the first of her books I read and I was not disappointed. A ghostwriter, Lowen, is hired to finish a book series for the now comatose author, Verity. To comb through the boxes in her office, Lowen temporarily moves in with the family. While sorting through Verity’s notes, she finds her autobiography, which is full of dark confessions. Haunted by a lingering sense of 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.
1. The last few years of Verity’s life are filled with one horrific event after another. Is it realistic for so much tragedy to happen to one person organically?
2. Would you read someone’s journal if you found it?
3. How big of a red flag is it that Jeremy lied about picking her as the ghostwriter and was secretly one of Lowen’s fans?
4. Do Jeremy and Lowen really have feelings for each other or was she love-bombed into that relationship?
5. Which do you think is the true version of events: the Letter or the Autobiography?
In the Epilogue, Lowen finds a letter tucked in the floorboards while packing to move into a new house with Jeremy. In the letter, Verity swears up and down that her autobiography was only a writing exercise to get her in the Villain mentality for her book series. She was just retelling events from her real life through the lens of her 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 in the rest of the book; including how he’s portrayed in the autobiography. He’s presented as a 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. His visceral reaction when Lowen gave him the autobiography to read was too intense to be fake. It was obvious he hadn’t read it before. His behavior indicates the Letter is lying.
Verity’s Reasoning:
In the Letter, Verity contradicts herself. She explains she is faking her comatose state because she is terrified of Jeremy. But if she was really so afraid of him, why risk giving herself away by fucking with Lowen? And why wouldn’t she just leave? She claims she was only hanging around until she found the one remaining copy of the autobiography, which makes no sense. If the autobiography was really fake, then why risk everything to destroy it? She was only staying, playing out her fucked up charade, to get rid of the incriminating evidence.
"We are What We Pretend to Be,
so We Must be Careful What
We Pretend to Be."
Kurt Vonnegut
Before the Fact Review
What would you do if you found out your husband was a murderer?