annotation: Verity
Aug. 16th, 2025 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matsushima posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
pineislandI (almost) never write about the books I read that I actually like? I should change that. I've read Sunrise on the Reaping twice in the (less than) six months since it came out and all I had to say about it was feelswave.gif.
I also wrote (twice!) about The Secret History of Bigfoot: In Search of an American Monster, which is, so far, my favorite book I've read this year. I'm going to ask for print copies of Sunrise on the Reaping and The Secret History of Bigfoot for Christmas[1] this year.
… I won't be asking for a copy of Verity by Colleen Hoover, even if I spent a few hours finishing it this morning.
I don't buy print copies of most books I read, so that isn't as much of a diss as I intended.
Pros: I did rip through this one. I read a bit before work every day since I borrowed it from the "Lucky Day" collection on Libby (Boston Public Library).
I'd heard of Colleen Hoover - who hasn't? - and I'd decided to pick up a thriller after a run of really good nonfiction that left me dissatisfied with my available options because it's really hard to search, browse, or even ask for recommendations on vibes, you know? "I want a book that makes me feel how I felt reading The AI Con and Burdened: Student Debt and the Making of an American Crisis" is hard because who knows exactly what made me feel that way? No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson theoretically should have done it but I got bored, like, yeah, yeah, corporate malfeasance, what else is new? (Admittedly, I didn't know there was (is?) asbestos in baby powder(?!) but even one of the most trusted corporations in the world turning out to be evil? no surprise there.)
Anyway… I keep getting off track because it's almost like I forgot about Verity as soon as I finished reading? literally less than an hour ago. (It was 8:53am exactly and I remember because I jumped up to get to my [sadly postponed] D&D campaign meeting at 9am.) I kept reading because I wanted to get to the end and see if the twist was good but…
Cons: The writing is so bad? I highlighted several passages in red because the writing, on a sentence level, was… it was bad. Amateurish. I was honestly kind of shocked? because Hoover is so popular. I know people like to rag on Stephen King because he's not a ~literary~ writer but he is a good writer.
Colleen Hoover is not a good writer. On a sentence/scene level, Colleen Hoover is not a good writer. She over writes and info dumps and I noticed it because I over write and info dump in my early drafts. It felt unedited.
1) Why wasn't this mentioned until Chapter 4? It should've been worked into the dialog pages and pages ago.
2) It should've been worked into the dialog or something. This felt like the kind of note I leave myself in early drafts of long works when I have an idea or finally decide something.
Also, what was up with Verity's disability? No spoilers, but: is there really a kind of brain damage where you're an "empty shell" unable to move independently or make eye contact or follow something with your eyes but able to chew food? At one point, post-car wreck Verity is described as "like an infant" but infants can't chew food and can track things with their eyes and move their limbs.
Oh, and the thing with the car accident in the beginning? Completely irrelevant, barely mentioned again. I thought, because Verity always wrote from the villain's point of view, that the "twist" would be that Lowen was the villain all along, maybe Lowen pushed that guy for some reason? It was a pretty "extreme" way to start a story, like a gross out/freak out "meet cute" for Lowen and Jeremy, to not have any relevance to the story other than the protagonist and love interest meeting each other in a weird funhouse mirror horror version of a romance novel… which I guess is what Hoover usually writes? which is probably why a lot of people in the Goodreads reviews thought it was so unique and original.
I thought that about the first thriller I read until I read 100 more of them and realized they're all the same. (That's not a criticism, BTW. Romance is the same way. I want what I want.) Verity didn't even have a unique twist. One of the reviewers pointed out that the premise is basically the same plot as Rebecca… which is fine, I love a retelling, but I didn't feel like Hoover did anything very interesting with it? The bonus chapter adds shades of Single White Female.
Oh, and… do people really bite the headboard when they're having sex? That seems fake to me but I could be wrong. There were a lot of explicit sex scenes in this book and they did nothing for me… or the plot.
I also wrote (twice!) about The Secret History of Bigfoot: In Search of an American Monster, which is, so far, my favorite book I've read this year. I'm going to ask for print copies of Sunrise on the Reaping and The Secret History of Bigfoot for Christmas[1] this year.
… I won't be asking for a copy of Verity by Colleen Hoover, even if I spent a few hours finishing it this morning.
I don't buy print copies of most books I read, so that isn't as much of a diss as I intended.
Pros: I did rip through this one. I read a bit before work every day since I borrowed it from the "Lucky Day" collection on Libby (Boston Public Library).
I'd heard of Colleen Hoover - who hasn't? - and I'd decided to pick up a thriller after a run of really good nonfiction that left me dissatisfied with my available options because it's really hard to search, browse, or even ask for recommendations on vibes, you know? "I want a book that makes me feel how I felt reading The AI Con and Burdened: Student Debt and the Making of an American Crisis" is hard because who knows exactly what made me feel that way? No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson theoretically should have done it but I got bored, like, yeah, yeah, corporate malfeasance, what else is new? (Admittedly, I didn't know there was (is?) asbestos in baby powder(?!) but even one of the most trusted corporations in the world turning out to be evil? no surprise there.)
Anyway… I keep getting off track because it's almost like I forgot about Verity as soon as I finished reading? literally less than an hour ago. (It was 8:53am exactly and I remember because I jumped up to get to my [sadly postponed] D&D campaign meeting at 9am.) I kept reading because I wanted to get to the end and see if the twist was good but…
Cons: The writing is so bad? I highlighted several passages in red because the writing, on a sentence level, was… it was bad. Amateurish. I was honestly kind of shocked? because Hoover is so popular. I know people like to rag on Stephen King because he's not a ~literary~ writer but he is a good writer.
Colleen Hoover is not a good writer. On a sentence/scene level, Colleen Hoover is not a good writer. She over writes and info dumps and I noticed it because I over write and info dump in my early drafts. It felt unedited.
The series title [that Verity Crawford was writing and narrator Lowen Ashleigh is taking over as a "co-writer"] is The Noble Virtues, and each book is a different virtue. The three that are left up to me are Courage, Truth, and Honor.
1) Why wasn't this mentioned until Chapter 4? It should've been worked into the dialog pages and pages ago.
2) It should've been worked into the dialog or something. This felt like the kind of note I leave myself in early drafts of long works when I have an idea or finally decide something.
Also, what was up with Verity's disability? No spoilers, but: is there really a kind of brain damage where you're an "empty shell" unable to move independently or make eye contact or follow something with your eyes but able to chew food? At one point, post-car wreck Verity is described as "like an infant" but infants can't chew food and can track things with their eyes and move their limbs.
Oh, and the thing with the car accident in the beginning? Completely irrelevant, barely mentioned again. I thought, because Verity always wrote from the villain's point of view, that the "twist" would be that Lowen was the villain all along, maybe Lowen pushed that guy for some reason? It was a pretty "extreme" way to start a story, like a gross out/freak out "meet cute" for Lowen and Jeremy, to not have any relevance to the story other than the protagonist and love interest meeting each other in a weird funhouse mirror horror version of a romance novel… which I guess is what Hoover usually writes? which is probably why a lot of people in the Goodreads reviews thought it was so unique and original.
I thought that about the first thriller I read until I read 100 more of them and realized they're all the same. (That's not a criticism, BTW. Romance is the same way. I want what I want.) Verity didn't even have a unique twist. One of the reviewers pointed out that the premise is basically the same plot as Rebecca… which is fine, I love a retelling, but I didn't feel like Hoover did anything very interesting with it? The bonus chapter adds shades of Single White Female.
Oh, and… do people really bite the headboard when they're having sex? That seems fake to me but I could be wrong. There were a lot of explicit sex scenes in this book and they did nothing for me… or the plot.
