Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Verity

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

thisbookrox's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

3.75

Content Warnings

kingrosereads's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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

3.75

Fam, let me tell you. Jesus Christ. This book was eight shades of what the fuck. Like serious I legit was so freaked out I couldn’t sleep without knowing what the fuck was going on. Like what even was this book??

I gotta start by saying that books where you’re not sure what’s real or not, really freaks me the fuck out. Like when reality and fiction blur and you don’t know if you can trust your own sense? Nah fam, I’m telling you that’s my nightmare and genuine fear.

Okay so we’ve got some weird ass names in typical Colleen Hoover fashion: Lowen Ashleigh is a good author but not super popular, she’s broke af (girl same), and her mom just died after she played caretaker for months. The way this fucking book started, shook me and made me wanna vomit.

“I hear the crack of his skull before the spattering of blood reaches me.”

Jesus. Ease me in Colleen. I had no idea what this book was about other then people saying is was freaky and the vague references I saw on TikTok had me thinking some Jane-Eyre-wife-in-the-attic vibes. Anyway, Lowen had the most grotesque meet cute on the planet with Jeremy Crawford (probably the only normal name in the book). Turns out Jeremey is going to the same meeting Lowen’s going to! His wife is Verity who’s like the queen of thrillers. Her books are a sensation, she’s a millionaire, and overall bad bitch. Unfortunately, Verity is in a vegetative state after a car crash with three books left unfinished in her series.

Verity’s publicist and Jeremy are looking for an author to finish the series, but as a co-author, since they’re keeping the extent of Verity’s injuries a secret. Lowen, though doubtful of her skills as a writer, accepts the job cause, let’s be honest, she needs the money. She ends up staying at the Crawford house to go their Verity’s boxes of notes to get in her headspace to finish the series.

So the Crawford family is messed up every which way til Sunday. Verity’s upstairs in a vegetative state, the couple’s 5-year-old, Crew, is running around doing creepy kid shit, and they recently lost their twin daughters, Harper and Chastin. It’s all very upsetting and the darkness just makes me wanna vomit and/or cry.

As Lowen goes through Verity’s things she finds a manuscript for Verity’s autobiography that proves to be the most disturbing thing my eyes have ever read. And even though Lowen’s life is sad and a bit tragic and she makes a lot of good points, she’s got the personality of peeling paint. But I can understand how it took a few weeks for her to get through this manuscript, vomiting and crying throughout, because she believed it was the truth.

Now spoilers. So look away for like 3 paragraphs.

However, she just casually doesn’t show Jeremy this damning and disturbing manuscript? I get in the beginning she wanted to spare Jeremy’s feelings, but it got to a point that shit didn’t matter anymore and he deserved the truth. All of this is going on and Lowen starts to realize that TV’s are being turned off or muted around Verity when she supposedly can’t move. Doors are locking by themselves, knives are disappearing, Crew is claiming his mother talks to him, oh and Lowen just CASUALLY sees Verity standing at the top of the stairs as her husband is sucking on her titties. GOODBYE. That sent my soul out of my body. Mostly, a lot of my fear came from my own fucked up mind making Crew and Verity look creepy as fuck. But yeah, Lowen would just catch Verity stare at her and I’d have like baby gooseflesh moments.

“If this bitch turned off that goddamn television, I’m walking out that front door without shoes on and I’m never coming back.” Fam, I would’ve BEEN gone!

I felt like I was going crazy with Lowen. I half expected it to be all in her head. Or Jeremy was really the psychopath. Part of me genuinely believed she was gonna get to the end of the manuscript and it would be a recent addition that like calls Lowen out.

I thought the discovery of Verity’s deceit was anticlimactic. The discovery of the letter was a little comical, cliché, and exhausting. Like I highly doubt Verity was actually innocent. You can do a lot of things to survive, but to urinate on yourself REPEATEDLY and stay still for hours with no reaction to movement or sound? And do this for months? Yeah no. You’ve gotta be a whole ass psychopath for that, life on the line or not. Other than the creepy scene of Lowen ending up in Verity’s room (when she doesn’t mention in the letter) what’s the point of her sleepwalking? I was also thinking she’d wake up attacking Verity. Which would’ve been interesting. And what was the deal with those two women at the Target who claim to be Verity’s friends and are never mentioned again?

Also, why leave the letter? If you genuinely think your life’s at stake and you’re innocent, why leave the letter? And why not put it at the end of the manuscript for the only person who would understand your process and who wasn’t as emotionally invested in the situation to find and help you? Like fam, you have all this time to fake being catatonic but can’t use that time to actually ask for help from either of your two nurses or Lowen? I’m not buying it. She definitely left that letter for Lowen to find to fuck with her. As a last “fuck you” if Jeremy killed her before she could run away or kill him.

As time went on, dry as a biscuit, Lowen, started becoming mad interesting when she started becoming a crazy ass bitch herself. What is up with this man’s dick that got all these women doing some crazy ass shit over it?! Cause Lowen really did and thought some fucked up shit! Lowen was losing her mind over Verity and threatened the woman! Then she lift her hips to let Jeremy’s magic sperm do it’s work?! How fertile is this man?! How fertile are these women?! Honestly, Jeremy is fucked up too. He comes in a girl he doesn’t know, the way he reacted to the manuscript was sus as hell, he was just crazy obsessed with these two women, and then he casually moves on with another woman and having a baby less than a year from losing his two daughters? He was fucking some chick with his wife in the other room and talked about that guilt right before fucking??? Red Flag.

The sex scenes were like hot at first but quickly became creepy as hell as Lowen thought about Verity while in the act, bit the headboard to outdo Verity’s bite marks, and did everything to be the opposite of Verity in bed to please Jeremy. Like she took what she learned about Jeremy’s sex skills in the manuscript and ran with it.

Honestly, other than possibly neglecting her children, trying to abort her twins, and killing her daughter, Verity is the most interesting character in the whole book. Is she manipulative and traumatizing as fuck? Yes. Will Crew need therapy for the rest of his life? Yes. But I recognize the commitment and I respect it. Plus, she made it like her mission to fuck with Lowen, and in retrospect, that shit is funny as hell. Not during, the shit was creepy. But I’ve had time to think back on it these last 71 minutes and have concluded it’s hilarious as fuck.

OKAY YOU CAN COME BACK NOW! No more spoilers

Honestly, this book was a mess. There was a lot of random things that throw you off and seem sus or weird, but are just there. But this thing freaked me out. If you get freaked out over “what’s real and what’s not?” and psychological thrillers where the supposedly vegetative people are running around, then this book will be good to you. I imagine someone who is blasé about that, will find this boring or comical. I mean hell, even I laughed at some parts, and not all of it was nervous laughter. I don’t see how anyone cried doing this book. It was sad that the girls died, but those scenes written from the POV of a psychopath made it easy to be detached from it.

It was entertaining enough. Book holds its own. I struggled to put it down. So check it out if this kind of shit interests you.

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mymixedtape's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

2.5

Content Warnings

linetyynibooks's review

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fast-paced

Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

0.5

First book of C. Hoover I read / listened to. The books sell so good in our store, so I thought I finally give it a try.

Well. I don't get it. Why is it this popular?
So much sexism, ableism, fat-phobia.
No content warnings at all.

Content Warnings

lizaleoma's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

miladimelow's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.25

Oh. my. God.

I am always hesitant to by books by popular authors (especially ‘tiktok’ popular authors) for two reasons. 1) they are usually overrated and 2) I don’t want to seem like someone who reads for the ‘trend’. So because of this I was hesitant to buy this CoHo book, and was almost too embarrassed and was going to put it back. But I’m so glad I didn’t.

Unlike most of CoHo’s books, this is primarily a thriller that follows world renowned author ‘Verity’. But once verity was in a car crash she is no longer able to continue her best selling series, so Lowen is hired to continue on for her. But when Lowen enters Verity’s office, what she doesn’t expect to find is her intimate autobiography about the milestones in her life.

HOLY CRAP this book was so good. This book is a couple firsts for me: it’s the first time have ever been left really freaked out by a book but it’s also the first time I literally have not been able to put a book down. I read half of this book in one sitting and was up till like 2:30 trying to finish. It was THAT good.

Verity’s autobiography is r sane, the detailed emotions and feelings of this psychopath really honestly had me feeling so disturbed I couldn’t handle it. The way that CoHo wrote about Verity’s supposed movements and Lowen complete and utter terror had me shaking while reading even though technically nothing seriously scary had left me like that.

I also did enjoy the fact that there was a romance on the side, so that if you ever got bored of the thriller you’d have Jeremy and Lowen’s or Jeremy and Verity’s romance to keep you occupied anyway. Using these romances, CoHo perfectly timed this book to ensure that it’s literally impossible for you to get bored. Like I said, this is the first book that I haven’t been thinking constantly about how many more pages I have to go, I just read and read without even noticing that I was doing it.

But this book isn’t five stars for a few short reasons. For the first thing, I found Lowen to be an incredibly boring character. I mean where is that spice and excitement that Verity has. You expect me to believe that he never felt that immense love for Verity that he did for Lowen. Lowen is so boring how is that possible. But this is soemthing I’ve found in most books written in the 1st person perspective of a woman. It’s like they try to make the woman so bland so that everyone can imagine themselves in her position.

Another thing, that I’m not sure if it actually would’ve improved this book or not, but let’s be honest the writing is quite simple, there was nothing really there to read that would leave me with that feeling of: ‘omg this writer is a genius’. But then again CoHo really makes up for that through the intricate plot she creates so really I can’t complain.

Quotes that scared the crap out of me even if they were that scary:

“I want you to love them more than you love me. Our love for eachother is conditional. Our love for them isn’t.”

“My love for you is unconditional,” I said -p109

“A writer should never have the audacity to write about themselves unless they’re willing to separate every layer of protection between the author’s soul and their book.” - p61

“one should only walk away from an autobiography with, at best, an uncomfortable distaste for the author.

I will deliver.” - p61

Edit: This has put me into a reading slump because nothing else will amount to it

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