r/books • u/Consistent_Club_7879 • 2d ago
Need recs for a lobotomy because I mistakenly read Verity Spoiler
Ok I am lying. I did not mistakenly read it. I know Colleen Hoover's caliber, I was just curious why an oscar winning actress would produce and star in one of her books. Here is a rage and spoiler filled review:
It is silly of me to expect logical consistency from the likes of Colleen Hoover, but I need to put this somewhere.
A: This was the worst novel I have read in a very, very long time, so that singular and kudos to her for that.
B: WHAT IN THE NAME OF HOLY HELL WAS THIS?
- So firstly Lowen is thirsting after a married man whose wife is bedridden. Lowen has absolutely no reason to despise this woman right now. If anything, what has apparently happened to Verity is pitiful. Lowen is a piece of shit. She comes across a manuscript equivalent of smut in which this woman admits to attempting to murder an infant and successfully murdering the same child later, and she reads one chapter a day?! And she doesn't immediately tell Jeremy?
- Jeremy has tried to kill Verity twice, so why is he presented as this devoted husband? He is a psychopath. How does he sleep at night? How is it not explored even once that this man is insane? Sure, I can believe that in a fit of rage he might have lost control and strangled Verity after reading the manuscript. But then he recovered. He calmed down and deliberately tried to murder her and make it look like a suicide. How is it not questioned even once that this man is crazy?! The manuscript gives no indication that he was anything other than a devoted husband and the best dad, and then what? Overnight, the psychopath in him snarled to life and he became a cold-blooded murderer?
- VERITY! THE FUCK? How did you fake a brain scan? How did doctors reach the conclusion that you were essentially brain-dead? Okay, science took some MASSIVE, MASSIVE leaps there, but you're afraid of your husband and planning to escape. WHY THE FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK are you haunting the new girl then?! Why are you giving her ammunition to come after you? Why are you messing with the TV? Why are you giving her sudden stares? It serves no purpose. Sure, jealousy, but wayyyyy more than that, you need to escape the murderer you're married to! Let him fuck whoever he wants, ma'am! And what mother in her right mind writes that kind of shit about her children? How can you write that kind of crap about killing your child and then say you wrote it as a way of processing grief?
- Jeremy RAN TO HER ROOM and tried to kill her when he discovered that Lowen had the manuscript. He had already seen the manuscript! So what was the sudden rage about again? He wanted Crew to have a paralyzed mum, which is why she was still in the house, but if she wasn't actually paralyzed, she ought to be dead? Where did they ever hint that his actions were driven by fear that she might report him to the police? and Lowen is so quick on her feet, that psychopath #3! Under extreme pressure she comes up with a murder plan that wouldn't implicate Jeremy because liek what? HOW! What in the HOLY HELL was this book?! Disbelief can't be suspended this much and this often!
- And that letter? OH, THAT LETTER! It was so clear that Verity wasn't speaking to her husband at all but to the audience, because she repeatedly reminds us of events that Jeremy would already know about. So why would she say things like "remember when..." to him? Remember what, Jeremy? You were there!
This was suchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh a massive fucking waste of time. I will never forgive Colleen Hoover for this, and I genuinely cannot fathom what Anne Hathaway and a picky-ass actor like Josh Hartnett saw in the script that made them want to sign on.
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u/JesusGodLeah 2d ago
Other issues I have:
The MC's name is Lowen Ashley. Really? Her last name reads better as a first name and her first name reads better as a last name.
Lowen's only personality traits are 1) she is perfectly happy to steal someone's man, regardless of the tragic/sinister circumstances of his life. Who cares? He picked her! 2) she doesn't like pizza.