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A review by _anouk_
Verity by Colleen Hoover
1.0
Wtf did I do to deserve encountering The Silent Patient (Colleen’s Version)
Disclaimer: I do recognise that Verity covers sensitive topics and that it is important for those topics to be covered. However, if a book about said topics is as shitty as this one, we probably would’ve been better off without it <3
No but really you’re expecting me to believe that Verity successfully faked permanent brain damage? Here I was hoping that Hoover wouldn’t go with the obvious and surprise me instead, but instead we’re expected to believe that this random author was just able to fool medical professionals, nurses, and basically everyone else? Like no one thought to double check when the five-year-old started blabbing about talking to his mom? Literally no one??? Did Verity somehow manage to fake brain scans and other medical stuff as well??
As for this majestical plot twist everyone and their mom was hyping about: it’s been done before. I’m sorry but revealing that the person the protagonist just killed might have been innocent all along is not as revolutionary as some people are making it out to be. It has been done before in better, more surprising ways by better authors with better stories. Maybe I would’ve appreciated the whole letter thing a little more if the rest of the book was actually any good. Speaking of the freaking letter: when has doing your entire plot twist in a letter ever actually worked before?? That trope has always fallen flat to me, even if the rest of the book didn’t absolutely suck. Ever heard of show, don’t tell? Also, if you have to explicitly tell your reader that one of your characters might be an unreliable narrator, you should probably rewrite parts of your book. And if you wanted to make Lowen an unreliable character, you should’ve just done so instead of having her lie for no reason a couple of times and then forgetting all about it to focus on how scary Verity is.
Lowen as the narrator was almost unreadable at times. She is such a flat character, after almost 400 pages I still had no feelings towards her aside from a mild dislike and annoyance about the pointlessness of most of her observations. If I had a penny for every time Lowen mentions how Verity writes from the villains perspective (really subtle btw) or how attractive Jeremy is in situations where that really shouldn’t be a priority, I would be as rich as Verity and the fam. You just saw someone’s head get crushed by a truck and you’re worried about the marital status of the stranger in the bathroom? Really? What happened to Amos and Corey btw? I had to read a whole lot of filler about them only for them to disappear never to be mentioned again.
Jeremy has the personality of a wet cardboard box. I’ve been more intrigued by brick walls.
As for Verity herself, I don’t care who Hoover was trying to bamboozle with a plot twist at the end. The way that she writes the character and has Lowen react to her was at times absolutely disgusting. A lot of her character was giving ‘written by a man’ vibes and it was exhausting to read. It would be interesting to read about a character in similar circumstances as Verity if it were written by an author who actually knew how to write complex characters. Too bad, we got Colleen Hoover and her anti-woman, anti-choice wreck of a story instead. It is sad to see the two female leads be this poorly written. There was such an opportunity to turn the premise into a great novel, but it just wasn’t. If this is how Colleen Hoover writes her female characters then I don’t want it.
This book could’ve been great. There was a lot of potential with the general premise of the novel, which is why I decided to read it in the first place. Unfortunately, a mediocre plot twist can’t fix bad writing. This was my first attempt at reading a Colleen Hoover book and as you might have guessed also my last. I can confidently say that I wouldn’t ever even touch a book of hers again with a ten-foot pole.
Disclaimer: I do recognise that Verity covers sensitive topics and that it is important for those topics to be covered. However, if a book about said topics is as shitty as this one, we probably would’ve been better off without it <3
No but really you’re expecting me to believe that Verity successfully faked permanent brain damage? Here I was hoping that Hoover wouldn’t go with the obvious and surprise me instead, but instead we’re expected to believe that this random author was just able to fool medical professionals, nurses, and basically everyone else? Like no one thought to double check when the five-year-old started blabbing about talking to his mom? Literally no one??? Did Verity somehow manage to fake brain scans and other medical stuff as well??
As for this majestical plot twist everyone and their mom was hyping about: it’s been done before. I’m sorry but revealing that the person the protagonist just killed might have been innocent all along is not as revolutionary as some people are making it out to be. It has been done before in better, more surprising ways by better authors with better stories. Maybe I would’ve appreciated the whole letter thing a little more if the rest of the book was actually any good. Speaking of the freaking letter: when has doing your entire plot twist in a letter ever actually worked before?? That trope has always fallen flat to me, even if the rest of the book didn’t absolutely suck. Ever heard of show, don’t tell? Also, if you have to explicitly tell your reader that one of your characters might be an unreliable narrator, you should probably rewrite parts of your book. And if you wanted to make Lowen an unreliable character, you should’ve just done so instead of having her lie for no reason a couple of times and then forgetting all about it to focus on how scary Verity is.
Lowen as the narrator was almost unreadable at times. She is such a flat character, after almost 400 pages I still had no feelings towards her aside from a mild dislike and annoyance about the pointlessness of most of her observations. If I had a penny for every time Lowen mentions how Verity writes from the villains perspective (really subtle btw) or how attractive Jeremy is in situations where that really shouldn’t be a priority, I would be as rich as Verity and the fam. You just saw someone’s head get crushed by a truck and you’re worried about the marital status of the stranger in the bathroom? Really? What happened to Amos and Corey btw? I had to read a whole lot of filler about them only for them to disappear never to be mentioned again.
Jeremy has the personality of a wet cardboard box. I’ve been more intrigued by brick walls.
As for Verity herself, I don’t care who Hoover was trying to bamboozle with a plot twist at the end. The way that she writes the character and has Lowen react to her was at times absolutely disgusting. A lot of her character was giving ‘written by a man’ vibes and it was exhausting to read. It would be interesting to read about a character in similar circumstances as Verity if it were written by an author who actually knew how to write complex characters. Too bad, we got Colleen Hoover and her anti-woman, anti-choice wreck of a story instead. It is sad to see the two female leads be this poorly written. There was such an opportunity to turn the premise into a great novel, but it just wasn’t. If this is how Colleen Hoover writes her female characters then I don’t want it.
This book could’ve been great. There was a lot of potential with the general premise of the novel, which is why I decided to read it in the first place. Unfortunately, a mediocre plot twist can’t fix bad writing. This was my first attempt at reading a Colleen Hoover book and as you might have guessed also my last. I can confidently say that I wouldn’t ever even touch a book of hers again with a ten-foot pole.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Child abuse, and Gore