Colleen Hoover's kind of become a bit of a meme online. I read one of her other books out of curiosity— and I was so bored by it I honestly can't even remember which one it was, and it doesn't help that reading the descriptions of a few of her books, at least two of them are similar enough I can't tell which one it was. I just totally memory holed it. I think it had something to do with a guy burning down his girlfriend's house. I found it wasn't the fun kind of bad read.
I have no idea what possessed me to read her book Verity based on that experience. I had the ridiculously stupid plot twist spoiled for me maybe two years ago— which, out of context is entirely underwhelming. As someone who reads a lot of horrors, thrillers, and disturbing lit in general I'd see this book pop up on a lot of goodreads lists in that general catagory, which knowing only what the twist was seemed kind of silly. I'm actually convinced now part of the reason why I had such a blast reading it was because I knew what the stinger was— which catapulted this from an underwhelming thriller to (totally by accident on the author's part) just an absolutely fantastic dark comedy.
I will say I totally understand why people generally kind of don't like this book. That stringer at the end would feel like such a cheap rug pull if you were actually invested in the story in the way I believe the author wanted the reader to be. It doesn't really make sense in the narrative either. There's too many elements that don't add up to the final reveal, with no additional explanation. It also doesn't help that this book feels highly derivative of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. Not really enough to feel like it's dancing on the line of plagiarism by any means, but enough I wouldn't nessesarily disagree that spiritually it has a kind of rip-off vibe, if that makes sense. The actual content is reasonably different, but the story beats of Verity are very similar to Rebecca's— all be it the bootlegged version of them. Doesn't help that both novels are named after the "other woman" character in both novels. The general flavor of this book is Rebecca, retooled in the essence of Gillian Flynn, written by Colleen Hoover, with her Colleen Hoovering all over it.
With that said, I do think there's some nuggets of genuine quality in this. I really wasn't impressed with the prose in the other book I read from her. They were very utilitarian in a way I'd call aggressively mediocre. There's nothing groundbreaking in this one either, but overall, I think there was some overall better execution in Verity. There's actually functionally two POV characters in this novel, one in the present day with the main protagonist, and one that's done in diary entries read by the protagonist in the narrative of a woman who is herself a writer in the story. The protagonist's narrative voice is very similar to that aggressive mediocrity I assume is Hoover's typical writing style, but when she's writing as the character doing the diary entries, there is some actual creative play with the pacing and overall flow of the writing I liked. I love it when writers flavor the tone of a scene by focusing on the kinds of strange details that stick in your mind you'll just forever associate and become like a totem to the feelings those experiences brought up in you. A symbolic manifestation of the kinds of moments that haunt you that taint mundane objects in your everyday life. Hoover struggles sometimes with conveying this without beating the reader over the head with it, but I like the ideas she creates with sensation and imagery. I was also pleasantly surprised that this book does have some pretty decent disturbing content in it. It's not remarkably extreme for people looking for that big thrill of shock and horror, but it's pretty tastefully upsetting. Less is more sometimes when it comes to making a reader feel uncomfortable, and I felt like there was a good balance of restraint and pushing the boundaries here. There's a bit of a drag with the repetition of a lot of the sexual content, but to some degree it even manages to keep that fresh. I would have liked to see more exploration in the exploration of the problematic mother-children relationship described, and I would have liked that element to be more at least thematically relavent to the present timeline plot, but it made me feel am enjoyable amount of disgusted— if that makes sense. This is some genuine displays of talent when it comes to writing disturbing subject matter. I'm maybe biased, but even though Hoover seems to be more into drama and romance, I think she might actually be decent if she refocused her craft on writing thrillers.
The sticking point with this book however, is that it kind of just doesn't work if you're trying to take it seriously. The characters are shallow and not very likable in a way I don't think was intended. The characters don't act in ways any reasonable adult would. The plot hinges on some absolutely monumental degrees of failure to communicate to facilitate these unhinged misunderstandings. And a not insignificant amount of things happen it seems just to, I guess, prank the reader. There's just no other explanation for it. Part of the reason why the twist doesn't work is because it makes an already silly series of events make even less sense then they already did. And yet somehow, all of these things make the book kind of amazing if you're reading as a campy over the top melodrama. When you know what's coming, it all becomes this dramatic irony comedy of errors— the climax being particularly lethal as pitch black comedy. The characters being so abstract from reasonable human behaviorleaves a lot of distance from the brutality of a lot of the content to a very fun kind of indulgence of violance. Like watching a slasher movie. Though I called this a "bad book," I feel like this is only a bad book in the ways the author intended. I genuinely love this book. A round of edits and revisions, this would genuinely be a great dark comedy with really not changing that much of the content. And that twist that doesn't really work as a twist, is actually a fantastic punchline. I even think that the kind of confused social commentary I think this book was trying to convey when it comes to the ways we vilify women would feel more bitting if this was a satire. It's striking similarity to Rebecca would feel more like an interesting commentary on that book's themes.
If camp-fests are your jam or you're in to ironic reads, I'd highly recommend Verity. It's pretty wild when you're going in to have fun with it. I would personally recommend you look up what the final twist is and bask of the absurdity of the things that transpire knowing that's what it's all leading up to, but even just being given fair warning not to take it seriously will make it way better.
by ThisDudeisNotWell