Verity - Colleen Hoover - ★★★★

AUTHOR: Colleen Hoover

GENRE: Psychological Thriller.

PUBLICATION DATE: December 7, 2018

RATING: 4 stars.

Verity is a book that receives extremely mixed reactions from readers, who seem to either love it or be completely turned off by it. When a book receives out-and-out positive or negative reviews, it's easier to take a decision on whether to read it or not. But with mixed feedback, one keeps teetering on both sides of the fence.

I've been dilly-dallying with this book since more than a year. Today, I finally succumbed to the temptation.

Verity tells the story of Lowen Ashleigh, an unsuccessful writer appointed by a publishing house to continue a popular book series written by the famous Verity Crawford, who has been injured in an accident. In the course of researching for the continuation of the series, Lowen discovers Verity's autobiography which contains some ghastly revelations about Verity and her family. How much of this is true and how much is the author's gruesome imagination is upto Lowen to figure out. A romantic complication exists in the form of Verity's too-good-to-be-true husband, Jeremy, whose character seems to be caught torn between the painful past, the problematic present and the potential future.

In terms of the thrill factor, Verity (the book, not the character) rates a pretty good 4/5. Colleen Hoover maintains a steady momentum throughout the book and adds enough of plot twists to keep you hooked, though you can see some of the plot twists from a mile away. It is very tough to keep the book aside once the story gains its tempo, which is right from the first sentence. You will feel frustrated, you will feel disgusted, you will feel horrified, but you will still go on with the book!

Where the book loses quite a bit of its worth is in its sleazy, over-the-top sex scenes. To be honest, the scenes are sometimes required to establish certain attributes of Verity's character, but they do become too much to digest after a point.

Add to that the seemingly bipolar quality of Colleen Hoover's writing. When she writes Lowen's story, her writing is tedious and unidimensional. But when she writes for Verity, you suddenly see the mind of an evil psychopath in action and this darkness is as stunning as it is creepy. I wonder if she did this on purpose to differentiate between the skill of Lowen and Verity as authors.

Verity (this time, the character, not the book) is named quite ironically. Verity means truth, but the outlandish nature of Verity's statements in the book is such that their veracity is always in doubt. Thus the title of the book can be interpreted both as alluding to the character and as indicative of the blurred trueness of human nature.

All in all, if you can keep the Kama Sutra techniques aside, this can be a very enjoyable thriller to read. Unless, of course, you would want to read the book for precisely those techniques, in which case also it can be a very *thrilling* book. Colleen Hoover's plot idea is brilliant, but it loses somewhat in its execution. I wish she could have cut down on the pornographic elements and focused more on better plot development. That said, having low expectations from a book can be a blessing. I was looking for a decent adrenaline rush and Verity didn't disappoint me on this count at all.

Trigger warnings: child abuse, over-the-top erotica, OPEN ending.