Reviews with content warning for Miscarriage - Verity

I just finished The Housemaid and saw lots of folks compare the book to Verity. So, it made sense to me for Verity to be my next read while The Housemaid was still fresh in my mind. That being said, take this review with a grain of salt.

Verity was okay but the whole time I was waiting for it to be great. Colleen Hoover's books are all over Booktok, so I had high hopes. The writing was okay. The plot fell a bit flat for me and definitely relied heavily on shock factor. The characters were predictable. I found the main character - Lowen - to be insufferable sometimes.

I want to try to read another one of Colleen Hoover's books to see if it's any better. I can't say this was a great first impression. I can appreciate that the book wants its reader to dive a bit deeper beneath the surface and question the reality that we are perceiving.

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SPOILERS

I can't say that I saw the twist coming at the end where Verity claims the manuscript was "fake," but the twist didn't offer the shock factor that I wish that it did. At that point, the book was so close to being finished that I didn't particularly care whether or not Verity did all the horrible things she claimed that she did. It frustrated me that the book ultimately ended with a happy ending for Lowen and Jeremy. It felt like the resolution of Verity's death/murder was rushed and that Hoover could have leaned more into the Letter to Jeremy at the end. It felt to me that things were wrapped up a little too neatly for them and their growing family.

Content Warnings

michelleub's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

As someone who usually doesn’t read thrillers, I really did enjoy reading this one. I know CoHo gets criticized a lot but this one actually has a good plot. I think maybe CoHo should stick to thrillers and maybe part ways from the romance genre, her books just need more than just romance, for example it ends with us, it was good because it had that whole domestic violence thing going on. This book? It had the manuscript, the creepy verity and the sudden deaths of her two children. I never knew what she was going to do next, but I just had to find out, which why I practically ate this shit up. Read half of the book in one day even though I had to learn for my exam.
Anyway now you know how I feel about the book but I also want to talk about the important stuff.
Her writing. I felt like she did not really describe places or people so I couldn’t really imagine anything or anyone but Jeremy and I think the only thing I know about him is that he is attractive, oh and verity is skinny is something I just have to guess from her mindset about her body. The irony in this is that I also felt like CoHo sometimes talked about stuff that was unnecessary, for example the sex scenes, we get they had sex, I don’t need it described all the time. But the unnecessary stuff, apart from the sexual content, got better, either that or I stopped noticing because I only cared about the manuscript.
Overall, this book was like most of CoHo books, easy to read and get through, definitely a good book when your just getting started with thrillers.

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heyitsallie's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I really loved this one!!
Colleen Hoover is generally not my jam - her books are too lovey dovey for me. Verity however, is a thriller masterpiece. I was hooked the whole time. THE WHOLE TIME. also am I in love with Jeremy now? I think I might be.

Great plot twist at the end.

Warning though. If explicit graphic sexual content is not your fortè; this is not the book for you sis. Put the book down and run away.

4.5 stars.

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mistyyyy's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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hiddeninfantasy's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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ybrijette's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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fetherfall's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

kileykao's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I was not expecting to like this book. I want to make this abundantly clear. I came into this looking for trashy romance, and knowing nothing about this book other then it's the one that all of the Colleen Hoover fans in my life rave about. I ended up reading this book in one sitting and was blown away with how much I liked it. There was so much about Hoover's storytelling that as a reader you can tell was thought out and worked through to present the best version of this story.

In other reviews of Hoover's work, I mentioned that her writing feels like a very specific fanfiction you go looking for, and I still stand by that statement. Her writing does, at points, heavily feel like fanfiction writing but I stand by that "fanfiction writing" is not an insult to this book or Hoover's writing style. Trashy romance is a very popular genre, and while this book is very much not trashy romance and work very hard to make the reader feel scared and/or confused about the events happening in Verity's house, it still does the genre it is written in very well.

Lowen (The FMC) still struggles with the problem that seems to be recurring in Hoover's book which is that it is almost that she does not have a life outside of Jeremy Crawford / Verity, but she is more well developed then previous FMCs I've read. The plot twist at the end was insane, and I really like rather than just having you as the reader read Lowen's reactions to Verity's autobiography, you actually got to read what she was writing to really understand Lowen's reactions to Verity's actions. Overall, I cannot believe how much I liked this book, and I cannot believe how fast I ended up reading through it.

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