redefiningrachel's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-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
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, Child abuse, Car accident, Medical content, Confinement, Grief, Emotional abuse, Death, Child death, Murder, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Sexual assault
amaranth_wytch's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Cursing, Sexual content, Child abuse, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Abortion, Vomit, and Grief
Minor: Miscarriage, Infidelity, Injury/injury detail, Car accident, and Confinement
anielabooks's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Child death, Physical abuse, Violence, Mental illness, Abortion, Blood, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Car accident, Death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Grief
Moderate: Ableism, Sexual content, Suicide, Vomit, Pregnancy, Self harm, Infidelity, Suicide attempt, Injury/injury detail, and Cursing
Minor: Alcohol, Miscarriage, Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, and Rape
alliebee333's review against another edition
This book was just worst. Characters were unredeemable. The author attempts to make the reader believe something that is then heavily suggested to be a lie on several occasions. Lying to your readers isn’t a plot device or tool; it’s just lying. Totally illogical, but also incredibly predictable.
There’s a whole page dedicated to a description of Verity’s mother and her “expanding waist line“ and a description of disordered eating/workout behaviors to avoid Verity experiencing the same fate, so reader beware. These are terrible characters, all written terribly.
There’s a whole page dedicated to a description of Verity’s mother and her “expanding waist line“ and a description of disordered eating/workout behaviors to avoid Verity experiencing the same fate, so reader beware. These are terrible characters, all written terribly.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abortion, Blood, Car accident, Confinement, Eating disorder, Medical trauma, Child abuse, Pregnancy, Fatphobia, Injury/injury detail, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, Child death, Grief, Infidelity, Murder, and Physical abuse
elsakwes's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
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
2.0
Hoover’s acknowledgements say she finished writing the book four days before release. I believe her.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Confinement, Grief, Pregnancy, Child abuse, Child death, and Medical content
Minor: Abortion
hamstersinmypantsters's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Blood, Abortion, Body horror, Car accident, Grief, Injury/injury detail, Medical content, Sexual content, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, and Violence
scarlettoliver's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- 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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Sexual content, Grief, Infidelity, Murder, Child death, Blood, and Chronic illness
Moderate: Car accident, Injury/injury detail, Child abuse, Pregnancy, Death of parent, Ableism, and Abortion
Minor: Cancer, Rape, Confinement, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Kidnapping, Vomit, Miscarriage, Cursing, Drug use, and Gaslighting
3mmers's review against another edition
dark
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
1.0
So Verity is a romantic thriller by Colleen Hoover, an author who bookstagram will not shut up about. I did not read it because I expected to enjoy it. I read it because, like Marie Kondo I love mess, and because I’m a nosy bitch and wanted to know what everyone else was on about.
The short answer is Jack Fucking Shit.
This book is bad. It’s so bad. Like serious people come on, ‘their kiss was full of desire and respect’?? What does even mean? How to you discern respect in a sloppy tongue-kiss from a dude you’ve met an hour ago? Do people genuinely find writing like this sexy? I’m getting off topic.
Since this is a thriller we expect a narrative-shattering reveal or plot twist of some sort, and Verity delivers with the most vapid and underbaked garbage twist possible: a letter explaining directly to the protagonist what was going on since I guess the audience cannot be trusted to put it together any other way (though after reading Verity that distrust might actually be reasonable).
I’ve decided in an effort to get some — any — entertainment oout of my time with the novel I’ve opted to format my review in the same way. (And yes, Verity does include a dumb ersatz-handwriting font).
*****
Dear Reader,
If you’re reading this it is already too late for me, but it might not be too late for you.
It was Jeremy the whole time.
I mean, how could it not have been? I feel so foolish. I was so caught up in his easy confidence, the way he somehow always knew what to say, that I never suspected him. He agreed with all my suspicions, confirmed all my biases, let me believe that it was Verity the whole time… and I bought it hook, line and sinker.
In hindsight, the signs were all there. Verity’s villainous memoir was so toxic I completely overlooked Jeremy’s role in the narrative. He played me against a woman I thought was fucking braindead so I’d never question his possessiveness, his manipulativeness, his role in her death. I’m a grown woman! I should be old enough to see that well-intentioned chauvinism is still chauvinism. I’m cynical enough to be suspicious of how well-intentioned it would be. But he gave me a comically evil villain that was so much easier to hate, and agreed with my misconceptions to keep me from questioning why Verity had seemed so evil in every way. When I look back on it honestly, I can’t believe that Jeremy felt uncomfortable throughout their relationship, but also never suspected such an obviously evil woman.
In reality he was always a dude who would condescend to a stranger about her drinking habits and then make some random driver’s night infinitely more annoying to pretend to be rich. C’mon man. Make out in your own damn car.
I fell so fast. Looking back I’m shocked no one realized how vulnerable I was. I had no support network at all. I’d been a recluse for months, I’d just lost my mother, I was financially insolvent, facing eviction with no work lined up except for a project that he controlled entirely.
He was rich. He sought me out and lied about it. His marriage had been on the rocks after the deaths of his twin daughters but he acted like he’d totally fallen for me in just a few weeks. He took me out for dinner with his family. He fucked me in his wife’s bed. All while she was supposedly comatose above us. These are not the actions of a good man struggling with a family crisis! These are the actions of an asshole finding a new mark.
I was so anxious. I thought since I wasn’t bawling my eyes out that I was a chronic. I could handle it. Without my mom to take care of I was at a loss. I threw myself into work. I’ve always tried to distract myself from my problems. I took on a lease I couldn’t afford to take care of my mom for years rather than setting boundaries with her. I chose to take a financial hit from not promoting my books and found an agent that would let me do anything I wanted because I was fucking him rather than go to therapy for my debilitating anxiety disorder. I thought I was okay. I thought I was normal. But I was suffering and vulnerable and anyone would have been able to see that.
I now wonder why Jeremy invited me into his home so quickly. I was obviously an anxious mess. He was introducing me to his five-year-old son who’d just lost his mother and both sisters. I can no longer deceive myself into thinking these were the actions of a loving father. It was selfish and self-interested. Hey son, I know most of your family is dead, but here’s a stranger to be your new mommy!
I have to admit I was triggered by Verity’s injuries. I’d just spent months caring for my own mother after a life-long strained relationship. I projected my resentment onto Verity. She’d done nothing to me but at the sight of her medical bed it was like my mother was back again, judging me for things I had no control over. Insisting I care for her without consideration for what I would feel about it.
I feel a shiver up my spine when I think about how Jeremy encouraged this. I was crazy and he made me crazier. The last thing either of us needed was to jump right into another relationship. I knew that. I knew that! I had been so happy to be rid of Corey. It all seems so long ago now.
Things are so different now. Different and yet the same. Of all the things in Verity’s story, I never distrusted anything she’d said about Jeremy. Why would I? I agreed with it and there was nothing wrong with me. Now I know the truth. Verity was so kind. She was willing to break any taboo with her evil alter ego but never said a bad thing about her husband. Her personality flaw, obsession, is contrived to perfectly preserve the reputation of those she loved. The writer part of me is distantly impressed.
Jeremy was the perfect husband for a while, just like in the book (of course we got married almost immediately. I was pregnant and still financially struggling and had just watched him murder his wife). At the time it was the happiest day of my life. Looking back it seems like he was trying to lock me down.
He was a loving husband. Verity hadn’t been lying. He was great with the kids and I was able to keep writing. It started to get strange once I’d finished Verity’s series. The final plot twist was that the villainous perspective character had been a writer, reframing the whole narrative. It felt like what Verity would have wanted. Fans were shocked. Corey told me they loved it but I searched the title and the first result was a reddit thread called r/laurachasesucks so my policy of never appearing publicly is worth it. I can’t think of my time as Laura as anything other than a disappointment. Not that I’d ever wanted to change it. Jeremy loved that I never wanted to travel, and hated thinking of me surrounded by adoring strangers. By people other than him who loved me, who would support me.
At around the same time Crew broke his leg. School sports day. It wasn’t unexpected. Crew got a cast and crutches and handled it like a champ. He was back at school racking up signatures within days.
But Jeremy never got over it. I thought he’d get dehydrated because he refused to leave Crew’s side at the ER even for a moment. It was a hard day. Jeremy yelled at the nurses when they refused to admit us right away. He only backed off when they called security to the desk and clung to Crew’s hand, sweat streaming down his forehead. He was genuinely certain that Crew would die, I’m certain. I brought him a water bottle from the vending machine and he looked at me with the most horrible expression. His eyes were glazed with fear and pain and I don’t think he saw me at all. I tried to comfort him but he shook me off. He’d always loved physical contact but after that moment he couldn’t stand to touch me.
Crew got a cast and crutches and handled it like a champ. He was back at school racking up signatures within days. Jeremy, however, couldn’t get over it. It scared him badly. He wanted to pull Crew out and wrap him in cotton but Crew wasn’t having it. He was already getting too cool for his parents.
After that Jeremy was more introspective and, it hurts to say this, suspicious. Something in the delicate balance of our relationship had irreparably broken, though I didn’t know it at the time.
At first I didn’t understand it at all. It seemed random, as if my husband had been replaced with a doppelganger.Everything I did to try to reach out to him made him draw further away. All affection was suspicious. Everything I did with the children was suspicious. He’d loved how great I was with them, but now I couldn’t do anything right. Every night after we went to be he started interrogating me about everything I’d done differently from how he would have done it.
I thought I could love him out of it. I thought it was a temporary issue. He was under a lot of stress. He’d already lost two children so naturally any danger to his third would be deeply upsetting. I wasn’t ready to accept that Dr. Jekyll had Mr. Hyde inside of him the entire time.
He never got better. It started being retrospective. Not only did I not do anything right, I’d never done anything right. He’d always known I’d loved him more than the kids. He knew I’d favoured our child over Crew. I was capable of anything. He tossed the copies of my early books that he’d once kept proudly on his night stand back in my face.
Did Verity think she could fix him? That it would be the hardest challenge they’d ever face together?
I already know they didn’t. Hell, I made it that way. That’s what scares me so much. I always knew Jeremy was capable of horrible things, but I’d deceived myself into thinking it was a protective instinct, that his violence would never be directed towards me. It’s an age-old lesson. Love doesn’t make you safe. Jeremy quickly escalated from suspicion to threats. He wouldn’t let me alone with the kids. He wouldn’t let me cook for them. Soon he wouldn’t even let me touch them. The only thing he’d ever say about it was that he couldn’t let something happen again. He wouldn’t listen to anything in my defence. As far as he was concern I was a threat due to similarity to Verity.
I started to doubt my belief in her guilt and dug up her memoir. Jeremy had kept it in the attic the whole time. So much for our fresh start in Carolina. By this time I was much more familiar with Verity’s writing, having been the hand behind it for years. I was shocked. The memoir felt completely different, so artificial. The allergy poisoning was cribbed directly from the third book, where the good guy’s mistakenly think the murder weapon is a concealed shellfish broth. Verity wrote this book well before Chastin’s death. It’s a dark joke that her daughter’s death was the same as the silly red herring from her novel. Unfortunately I think I can relate to the state of mind that needs that kind of gallows humour.
I see less and less of Jeremy and I’m so afraid. I’ve seen what he’s capable of when he thinks someone is a threat to him. I’ve seen that he doesn’t need any proof. I have nothing to defend myself with except that I would never do anything like that, but it didn’t work for Verity and I fear it won’t work for me. There’s one thing that scares me more though. That Jeremy will get away with it. That because he knows how to say what people want to hear, to make them comfortable, to be the grieving widower, no one will suspect him.
Reader, I’m leaving this letter in my writing notes. If nothing happens to me then no one else will ever see this, but if you are going through my papers you already know what happened. Please — I’m begging you — believe me. Don’t trust Jeremy. Don’t stay there. Get out while you still can.
Lowen
The short answer is Jack Fucking Shit.
This book is bad. It’s so bad. Like serious people come on, ‘their kiss was full of desire and respect’?? What does even mean? How to you discern respect in a sloppy tongue-kiss from a dude you’ve met an hour ago? Do people genuinely find writing like this sexy? I’m getting off topic.
Since this is a thriller we expect a narrative-shattering reveal or plot twist of some sort, and Verity delivers with the most vapid and underbaked garbage twist possible: a letter explaining directly to the protagonist what was going on since I guess the audience cannot be trusted to put it together any other way (though after reading Verity that distrust might actually be reasonable).
I’ve decided in an effort to get some — any — entertainment oout of my time with the novel I’ve opted to format my review in the same way. (And yes, Verity does include a dumb ersatz-handwriting font).
*****
Spoiler
Dear Reader,
If you’re reading this it is already too late for me, but it might not be too late for you.
It was Jeremy the whole time.
I mean, how could it not have been? I feel so foolish. I was so caught up in his easy confidence, the way he somehow always knew what to say, that I never suspected him. He agreed with all my suspicions, confirmed all my biases, let me believe that it was Verity the whole time… and I bought it hook, line and sinker.
In hindsight, the signs were all there. Verity’s villainous memoir was so toxic I completely overlooked Jeremy’s role in the narrative. He played me against a woman I thought was fucking braindead so I’d never question his possessiveness, his manipulativeness, his role in her death. I’m a grown woman! I should be old enough to see that well-intentioned chauvinism is still chauvinism. I’m cynical enough to be suspicious of how well-intentioned it would be. But he gave me a comically evil villain that was so much easier to hate, and agreed with my misconceptions to keep me from questioning why Verity had seemed so evil in every way. When I look back on it honestly, I can’t believe that Jeremy felt uncomfortable throughout their relationship, but also never suspected such an obviously evil woman.
In reality he was always a dude who would condescend to a stranger about her drinking habits and then make some random driver’s night infinitely more annoying to pretend to be rich. C’mon man. Make out in your own damn car.
I fell so fast. Looking back I’m shocked no one realized how vulnerable I was. I had no support network at all. I’d been a recluse for months, I’d just lost my mother, I was financially insolvent, facing eviction with no work lined up except for a project that he controlled entirely.
He was rich. He sought me out and lied about it. His marriage had been on the rocks after the deaths of his twin daughters but he acted like he’d totally fallen for me in just a few weeks. He took me out for dinner with his family. He fucked me in his wife’s bed. All while she was supposedly comatose above us. These are not the actions of a good man struggling with a family crisis! These are the actions of an asshole finding a new mark.
I was so anxious. I thought since I wasn’t bawling my eyes out that I was a chronic. I could handle it. Without my mom to take care of I was at a loss. I threw myself into work. I’ve always tried to distract myself from my problems. I took on a lease I couldn’t afford to take care of my mom for years rather than setting boundaries with her. I chose to take a financial hit from not promoting my books and found an agent that would let me do anything I wanted because I was fucking him rather than go to therapy for my debilitating anxiety disorder. I thought I was okay. I thought I was normal. But I was suffering and vulnerable and anyone would have been able to see that.
I now wonder why Jeremy invited me into his home so quickly. I was obviously an anxious mess. He was introducing me to his five-year-old son who’d just lost his mother and both sisters. I can no longer deceive myself into thinking these were the actions of a loving father. It was selfish and self-interested. Hey son, I know most of your family is dead, but here’s a stranger to be your new mommy!
I have to admit I was triggered by Verity’s injuries. I’d just spent months caring for my own mother after a life-long strained relationship. I projected my resentment onto Verity. She’d done nothing to me but at the sight of her medical bed it was like my mother was back again, judging me for things I had no control over. Insisting I care for her without consideration for what I would feel about it.
I feel a shiver up my spine when I think about how Jeremy encouraged this. I was crazy and he made me crazier. The last thing either of us needed was to jump right into another relationship. I knew that. I knew that! I had been so happy to be rid of Corey. It all seems so long ago now.
Things are so different now. Different and yet the same. Of all the things in Verity’s story, I never distrusted anything she’d said about Jeremy. Why would I? I agreed with it and there was nothing wrong with me. Now I know the truth. Verity was so kind. She was willing to break any taboo with her evil alter ego but never said a bad thing about her husband. Her personality flaw, obsession, is contrived to perfectly preserve the reputation of those she loved. The writer part of me is distantly impressed.
Jeremy was the perfect husband for a while, just like in the book (of course we got married almost immediately. I was pregnant and still financially struggling and had just watched him murder his wife). At the time it was the happiest day of my life. Looking back it seems like he was trying to lock me down.
He was a loving husband. Verity hadn’t been lying. He was great with the kids and I was able to keep writing. It started to get strange once I’d finished Verity’s series. The final plot twist was that the villainous perspective character had been a writer, reframing the whole narrative. It felt like what Verity would have wanted. Fans were shocked. Corey told me they loved it but I searched the title and the first result was a reddit thread called r/laurachasesucks so my policy of never appearing publicly is worth it. I can’t think of my time as Laura as anything other than a disappointment. Not that I’d ever wanted to change it. Jeremy loved that I never wanted to travel, and hated thinking of me surrounded by adoring strangers. By people other than him who loved me, who would support me.
At around the same time Crew broke his leg. School sports day. It wasn’t unexpected. Crew got a cast and crutches and handled it like a champ. He was back at school racking up signatures within days.
But Jeremy never got over it. I thought he’d get dehydrated because he refused to leave Crew’s side at the ER even for a moment. It was a hard day. Jeremy yelled at the nurses when they refused to admit us right away. He only backed off when they called security to the desk and clung to Crew’s hand, sweat streaming down his forehead. He was genuinely certain that Crew would die, I’m certain. I brought him a water bottle from the vending machine and he looked at me with the most horrible expression. His eyes were glazed with fear and pain and I don’t think he saw me at all. I tried to comfort him but he shook me off. He’d always loved physical contact but after that moment he couldn’t stand to touch me.
Crew got a cast and crutches and handled it like a champ. He was back at school racking up signatures within days. Jeremy, however, couldn’t get over it. It scared him badly. He wanted to pull Crew out and wrap him in cotton but Crew wasn’t having it. He was already getting too cool for his parents.
After that Jeremy was more introspective and, it hurts to say this, suspicious. Something in the delicate balance of our relationship had irreparably broken, though I didn’t know it at the time.
At first I didn’t understand it at all. It seemed random, as if my husband had been replaced with a doppelganger.Everything I did to try to reach out to him made him draw further away. All affection was suspicious. Everything I did with the children was suspicious. He’d loved how great I was with them, but now I couldn’t do anything right. Every night after we went to be he started interrogating me about everything I’d done differently from how he would have done it.
I thought I could love him out of it. I thought it was a temporary issue. He was under a lot of stress. He’d already lost two children so naturally any danger to his third would be deeply upsetting. I wasn’t ready to accept that Dr. Jekyll had Mr. Hyde inside of him the entire time.
He never got better. It started being retrospective. Not only did I not do anything right, I’d never done anything right. He’d always known I’d loved him more than the kids. He knew I’d favoured our child over Crew. I was capable of anything. He tossed the copies of my early books that he’d once kept proudly on his night stand back in my face.
Did Verity think she could fix him? That it would be the hardest challenge they’d ever face together?
I already know they didn’t. Hell, I made it that way. That’s what scares me so much. I always knew Jeremy was capable of horrible things, but I’d deceived myself into thinking it was a protective instinct, that his violence would never be directed towards me. It’s an age-old lesson. Love doesn’t make you safe. Jeremy quickly escalated from suspicion to threats. He wouldn’t let me alone with the kids. He wouldn’t let me cook for them. Soon he wouldn’t even let me touch them. The only thing he’d ever say about it was that he couldn’t let something happen again. He wouldn’t listen to anything in my defence. As far as he was concern I was a threat due to similarity to Verity.
I started to doubt my belief in her guilt and dug up her memoir. Jeremy had kept it in the attic the whole time. So much for our fresh start in Carolina. By this time I was much more familiar with Verity’s writing, having been the hand behind it for years. I was shocked. The memoir felt completely different, so artificial. The allergy poisoning was cribbed directly from the third book, where the good guy’s mistakenly think the murder weapon is a concealed shellfish broth. Verity wrote this book well before Chastin’s death. It’s a dark joke that her daughter’s death was the same as the silly red herring from her novel. Unfortunately I think I can relate to the state of mind that needs that kind of gallows humour.
I see less and less of Jeremy and I’m so afraid. I’ve seen what he’s capable of when he thinks someone is a threat to him. I’ve seen that he doesn’t need any proof. I have nothing to defend myself with except that I would never do anything like that, but it didn’t work for Verity and I fear it won’t work for me. There’s one thing that scares me more though. That Jeremy will get away with it. That because he knows how to say what people want to hear, to make them comfortable, to be the grieving widower, no one will suspect him.
Reader, I’m leaving this letter in my writing notes. If nothing happens to me then no one else will ever see this, but if you are going through my papers you already know what happened. Please — I’m begging you — believe me. Don’t trust Jeremy. Don’t stay there. Get out while you still can.
Lowen
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement
Moderate: Child death, Domestic abuse, and Pregnancy
gemin1reader's review against another edition
dark
2.0
I know Colleen Hoover isn’t really for me but I had to read this for book club. I straight up hated it. It was dark and depressing and uncomfortably tense to read (and I like thrillers). It built to this incredible climax and then the final ‘twist’ kind of ruined it for me.
Lower was an incredibly flat, not-like-other-girls heroine and even though she had an interesting backstory it barely seemed to count for anything plot wise?
And god knows why everyone was falling over themselves for Jeremy (which, no offence, is an incredibly unsexy name).
Do yourself a favour and check trigger warnings before if you’re sensitive about anything because there is a lot of miserable content here!
Lower was an incredibly flat, not-like-other-girls heroine and even though she had an interesting backstory it barely seemed to count for anything plot wise?
And god knows why everyone was falling over themselves for Jeremy (which, no offence, is an incredibly unsexy name).
Do yourself a favour and check trigger warnings before if you’re sensitive about anything because there is a lot of miserable content here!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Abortion, Vomit, Child death, Grief, Mental illness, Confinement, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Fatphobia, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Car accident, Infidelity, Injury/injury detail, Death of parent, and Blood
becphe's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
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? No
4.0
I read this in a day which I rarely do. The story was well written and I felt I got to know the characters well. The quick pace and dark subject matter make it seem like a horror/mystery only without much depth but the characters are what I will think about for weeks.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Child abuse, Sexual content, and Domestic abuse
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Murder, Abortion, Abandonment, and Mental illness
Minor: Body shaming, Car accident, Confinement, Injury/injury detail, Pregnancy, Chronic illness, and Infidelity