Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Verity by Colleen Hoover

45 reviews

weaverca's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

Most of the time if I don't like a book, I'm quick to say it's a DNF. This book, however, is the first one where even though I was not enjoying it, I still finished it to see just how bad it was as a whole. A "hate read" if you will. First off, Colleen Hoover's writing is pretty bare bones which unfortunately leaves a lot of room for lacking depth or exploration.

Like I thought the skull-crushing car accident at the beginning would be important to the story later, but then it was just... not mentioned again until one short sentence at the end?

Disappointing. That also made it hard to like the characters, and if there's one thing I hate when it comes to books, it's when they have unlikeable "protagonists." Second, I've read better smut on Wattpad for fuck's sake. All of it was so tasteless and repetitive, almost catering to the male gaze instead of the women the book supposedly gears itself towards. Last, even though I somewhat enjoyed the Gone-Girl-flipped-on-its-head ending of it all, I saw it coming from a mile away.

Verity using the "autobiography" as a writing exercise feels like the contemporary equivalent of when we used to write "Then I woke up and realized it was all a dream" to end the stories we wrote when we were children.

All in all, I was not impressed- and often bored in fact- by this book, and I can't say I plan on reading any of Colleen's other garbage fires.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Medical content, Grief, and Car accident

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Abortion, Murder, and Pregnancy

Minor: Kidnapping and Gaslighting

lillycrisp's review

medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Rape

anielabooks's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

Very entertaining book. Something very different from Colleen’s romance books that I’ve read. It was very eerie and tense at times, which I loved. This might be my second favorite Colleen book I’ve read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Abortion, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Gaslighting

Moderate: Ableism, Cursing, Infidelity, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death, Confinement, Miscarriage, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, and Alcohol

emmashemko's review against another edition

1.0

I’m so angry and disgusted with Colleen Hoover right now. I can say with confidence right now that I’ll never be reading one of her books ever again. 

TW: sexual assault 

I don’t understand how authors can get away with using r/sa as a plot device without consequence. Especially Colleen Hoover who not only used it to advance her plot but consistently glorified and romanticized r/sa in this book. JAIL. 

Verity r/sa Jeremy twice by waking him up with sex. Never in the book does Jeremy consent to this happening to him. When Lowen reads about this happening to Jeremy instead of acknowledging the situation as r/sa she gets jealous of his sex life. r/sa is NOT sexy or romantic. It’s disgusting. 

Then later in the book Jeremy and Lowen have unprotected sex and Jeremy NEVER asks for consent to c*m inside Lowen he just goes ahead and does it. That’s straight up r*pe. 

And on top of all this Colleen Hoover promotes unsafe sex. The first time Lowen and Jeremy have sex he doesn’t have a condom and she isn’t on birth control and they agree the best course of action is to pull out. I’m sorry but there are SO many young people reading Colleen Hoover’s books and I’m disgusted that she’s promoting this to her readers. Especially considering that abortions are not legal everywhere. FU Hoover. 

If you’re going to romanticize r/sa the least you could have done is provide trigger warnings in one of the first pages of this book. Do better Colleen Hoover.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Abortion, Murder, and Pregnancy

metalcutesolid's review

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Grief, Car accident, and Abortion

Minor: Drug abuse, Rape, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

pinkskieslexi's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This book is insane the second you form an idea about where its going theres a new twist, love love love this book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Abortion, and Murder

Moderate: Ableism and Child death

Minor: Rape

k8lynn's review

dark mysterious fast-paced

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

1.75

this book's writing has more telling than showing, but the plot made me not want to put it down, i was very eager to see what would happen next. i read this book in like 2 days but it's hands down one of the worst books i have ever read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual content, Torture, and Gaslighting

clairew97's review against another edition

challenging dark tense

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

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

lucilleowen's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Very very very dark!! But I loved it 😍 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, and Gaslighting

leahlovesloslibros's review against another edition

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

3.0

This was my first Colleen Hoover (CoHo) book, and for as much hype as she gets, I thought it was just OK. It was very much a page-turner, but I figured out the supposed twist pretty early on, which made it disappointing when the "twist" wasn't so much a twist, but really was just what it seemed to be all along.

AKA, Verity not actually being comatose but just faking it all along? We were basically led to believe that was happening the whole time; we just didn't necessarily know why.

The romance between Lowen and Jeremy was both boring and annoying. It was predictable and really just felt forced. I know there was supposed to be a romance piece to the story, but it was just awkward and cringe-y.

The last little twist that Hoover threw in there was somewhat redeeming, especially since she left you rethinking everything that you thought you knew through the whole book. Bravo for that, at least. 

It sounds like I hated this book; I really didn't. I actually couldn't stop reading it. I just really didn't like the characters (even the ones we were supposed to be rooting for). I think the premise of the book held a lot of promise but I wish it had been executed differently. Would I recommend it? That's a solid maybe, and if so, there would be caveats with the recommendation.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Blood, Abortion, and Murder

Moderate: Fatphobia, Car accident, and Pregnancy

Minor: Cancer, Rape, and Death of parent

Additional TW/CW: drowning