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A review by hales230
The Verifiers by Jane Pek
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I got an email from Bookshop advertising this book, and even though I know it was just a mass marketing email, it still felt like a very targeted ad, and I literally wound up buying this book immediately. One of my all-time favorite authors, Emily St. John Mendel, blurbed this book, and the summary compared it to Veronica Mars, one of my all-time favorite TV shows. Add in a queer, English major main character whose main focus was Jane Austen and who is obsessed with her favorite fictional detective, and I swear there's no way this book could've hooked me more.
The premise of this novel is so fascinating, and Jane Pek's world-building of an entirely fictional (though definitely based in reality) online dating sphere was really well done. And I absolutely love how Claudia is recruited for Veracity, a mysterious online dating detective agency - it's exactly the type of thing I would expect from such an odd company. The description of this novel describes it as "part literary mystery, part family story" and that is a really accurate description. I loved reading about Claudia's family just as much as I did Veracity and the mystery she was trying to solve, and I feel like Pek did a fantastic job creating dynamic characters that you feel all sorts of complicated ways about and who you can understand. This is as much about the struggle of Claudia's family's experience as immigrants and their differences as it is about her attempting to solve the mystery of a client's disappearance. It is heartfelt and real and emotional.
I also loved Claudia, the amateur detective who thinks she has a great handle on how to solve this case, and yet messes it up here and there. It really does remind me of Veronica Mars a lot in that way, especially the first season where Veronica's trying to solve the murder of her best friend and absolutely gets in over her head a lot, but she just cares so much about trying to figure it out that she'll dive headfirst into things. There are a lot of similarities between her and Claudia - I'm not sure if I see them more clearly because I also happened to be rewatching Veronica Mars at the same time as I picked up this book, but the parallels are definitely there.
I really enjoyed this book, but there was something that kept me from feeling fully hooked and invested in the story, and I don't know exactly why. I think maybe Pek's writing style just doesn't 100% work for me, but I wanted it to grab me a little more from the get-go. I'd be really interested to see if this continues as a series, or at least gets a sequel, though, because I think there is room for it, and I'd love to read more of this author's work.
The premise of this novel is so fascinating, and Jane Pek's world-building of an entirely fictional (though definitely based in reality) online dating sphere was really well done. And I absolutely love how Claudia is recruited for Veracity, a mysterious online dating detective agency - it's exactly the type of thing I would expect from such an odd company. The description of this novel describes it as "part literary mystery, part family story" and that is a really accurate description. I loved reading about Claudia's family just as much as I did Veracity and the mystery she was trying to solve, and I feel like Pek did a fantastic job creating dynamic characters that you feel all sorts of complicated ways about and who you can understand. This is as much about the struggle of Claudia's family's experience as immigrants and their differences as it is about her attempting to solve the mystery of a client's disappearance. It is heartfelt and real and emotional.
I also loved Claudia, the amateur detective who thinks she has a great handle on how to solve this case, and yet messes it up here and there. It really does remind me of Veronica Mars a lot in that way, especially the first season where Veronica's trying to solve the murder of her best friend and absolutely gets in over her head a lot, but she just cares so much about trying to figure it out that she'll dive headfirst into things. There are a lot of similarities between her and Claudia - I'm not sure if I see them more clearly because I also happened to be rewatching Veronica Mars at the same time as I picked up this book, but the parallels are definitely there.
I really enjoyed this book, but there was something that kept me from feeling fully hooked and invested in the story, and I don't know exactly why. I think maybe Pek's writing style just doesn't 100% work for me, but I wanted it to grab me a little more from the get-go. I'd be really interested to see if this continues as a series, or at least gets a sequel, though, because I think there is room for it, and I'd love to read more of this author's work.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Murder
Moderate: Drug use, Suicide, and Stalking