Colleen Hoover’s books are sensations. Apparently, they are hugely popular on TikTok. I haven’t read her other works (and there are plenty) but I recently bought ‘Verity’ upon the insistence of a friend who was on a Hoover marathon of sorts. Most of her books are romances but Verity is a thriller, which is why I thought it would be a good place to start. But I want my money back. Well, that might not be possible because I have literally hurled the book so many times that it’s quite battered now but I won’t be spending any more of my precious money on her books from now on.

Verity Crawford is a bestselling writer. She has written six books in a series and there are three more to go. Unfortunately, Verity is injured in a car accident following the tragic death of her twin daughters—she is paralyzed but the fact is kept under wraps—and her publisher ropes in another writer to complete her work. Enter Lowen Ashleigh. She is divorced, has spent a year taking care of her ailing mother and has recently been evicted from her apartment after defaulting on her rent. So, when she’s offered this job that pays really well, she takes it up.

Lowen moves into Crawford’s home, to go through Verity’s office and get the notes or whatever else it is that she might need to start. There, she discovers an autobiographical manuscript that exposes Verity’s sinister side. Is Verity responsible for the family’s ill fate? If so, how does she tell Verity’s husband, Jeremy (who she is falling in love with), the truth? And, how does she save herself from this mess?

The plot is predictable from the start. With only a handful of characters, there isn’t much to the story. The writing is bad with much of the book just being elaborate descriptions of kinky sex. Early on in the story, Jeremy says Lowen and Verity have similar writing styles, which is why Lowen was chosen for the job. That’s convenient given how the book shuffles between Verity’s and Lowen’s thoughts and the two sound the same. Isn’t it a writer’s job to make her characters’ voices unique, to flesh them out enough so that they don’t resemble another character in the book?

Hoover’s technique is to rely on jump scares to keep things interesting. But they don’t do the story any good. Rather, they make the narrative forced and unnatural. The only good thing about the book is that the chapters are short and, thanks to bad writing, you never want to pause and consider what you just read. That way, you don’t have to put up with it for long. I’m shoving this book far back into my bookshelf so that I don’t ever have to look at it again. I won’t give it away because that means someone will have to read it and I don’t want to inflict that kind of pain on anyone.

One star

Fiction

Verity

Colleen Hoover

Published: 2018

Publisher: Sphere

Pages: 321, Paperback