now it sounds like i hate it but i don’t i just didn’t enjoy it like others and if you loved it good on you just voicing my opinion

Lmao this makes me want to read it now. Just how bad is it? Although I can't stand bj scenes in books.

Verity is bad and trashy but it messes with your mind. I just read it last week. I believe parts of rhe manuscript and the letter are true but the manuscript has the most truth. I don't think I'll read another book by her but I did enjoy chewing over the ending.

Also I agree the random death at the beginning was stupid. There were a hundred different ways she could have had them meet/do the weird clothes exchange.

It's a lot like a very old bad and trashy movie I like called Leave Her to Heaven. It's a book too but I'd recommend the movie first. That's almost as trippy without all the gross stuff.

i wouldn’t say it’s bad but it’s not good and it’s not decent either so 😭 but was it a waste of my time? no because i got to laugh at how awful it was so

I’m glad i’m not the only one who didn’t understand the random death scene i also don’t understand how he fell in love with her after seeing someone die but hey he’s Jeremy 🤷‍♀️

I love watching trashy movies and then getting mad at the time i wasted but still enjoying bashing it

Agree on every point!!!!! This gave me a good chuckle. Long live Verity.

why did she have to eat part of the letter???? just flush the whole thing! bizarre.

WOAH HOLD I THOUGHT SHE FLUSHED THE WHOLE THING ? SHE PART OF IT???? how on earth did i miss that

just the parts with Jeremy’s name on it. if you thought the book was bad as is, please read the epilogue she wrote. AWFUL

also, I cannot get over how lowen thought she was so brilliant by being worried about the coroner finding fibers from a pillow in verity’s throat but nobody thought they would see significant bruising??????

C’MON COLLEEN!

i read that i must of just mindfully read it but WTF? if someone caught me reading something and i had to get rid of it my first thought would’ve been to flush it ??? this is why i hate rowen

RIGHT OUT OF ALL THEM DAMN CRIMINAL MINDS EPSIODES I WATCHED i sat there thinking there’s no way they are gonna not think this is murder just absolutely no way

LOL right?! like the book had so much potential but just turned out to be a dumpster fire. i was entertained at least, even if for the wrong reasons.

i told myself maybe i’ll give her another chance and read another one of her “ famous “ books but after that one imma need a LONNGGG break from her

I have read several of her books, mostly because they were recommended to me by friends but i’ve decided her books are simply not my jam. i did however really enjoy Layla and it was free on kindle unlimited. just very different from her other stuff. so if you ever give her another try, i suggest starting there!

Why did she print out the manuscript....

I read it quite a while ago but yeah I would probably also give 2 stars it sucked

If you don't want to read bj scene just don't read any of colleen hoover books There is so much too much

My friend and I buddy read it last year for shits and we made up some chapters of our own in which Verity resolves a number of situations by taking it in her mouth

Apparently there was a lot of sucking

I am suppressing this book in the deepest pits of my memory. The scene where she puts her hips on a pillow.... Yea... Yea. No.

Oh wow thanks for the heads up

This reads like a very angry twitter person, WTF is going on here?

What's funny is that someone literally made a whole ass post defending(?) colleen sometime ago...and then I see this review about how horrible verity is😭 I'm literally giggling right now

how is it 4.38 on goodreads though

No, the head's down, that's the problem.

I guess Goodreads likes bad reads.

With YA books you can usually take the rating and subtract 3.00 to end up with a realistic rating.

people online keep saying this book is brilliant and one of her best books, was planning to read it to see how good it....now Im not sure

'Hoover' didn't give it away?

I thought this book was below average. Everyone was telling me to read it, and when I did I couldn't see what they were on about. It's amateur, I could have written it. Maybe I'm just used to reading books with more depth but I don't read romance either. The unnecessarily graphic death, the unnecessarily graphic sex, and the amateur plot...? Blah I can't believe I wasn't two days on it.

Yeah...I hated this book. I am not a horror fan anyway and it was just so awful.

She is a good awful writer

This isn't a ya book

I wanted to like this book so badly, but I just couldn't.

• The incredibly descriptive child abuse scenes
• The horrible character names
• The massive plot holes
• The fact that there is no way a mother wrote those scenes about her own kids and found it "therapeutic"
• The long scenes about things that never end up being relevant to the story (as you pointed out)

I was just so disappointed at the end of it. It felt like the only scenes that had any thought put into them were the sex scenes.

Also, I couldn't help but notice that the voice of Verity in her manuscript and her phrases were super similar to the speaking style of Lowen. Like... every person's personality and mannerisms felt the same.

FWIW, there’s a lot of dickriding on Goodreads for popular en Vogue authors.

When the host of a popular true crime podcast published a book, before it even arrived in stores or for those who pre-ordered, it already had a 4 star rating. Neon Gods has a high rating when the writing is so painfully dry and there was only I think two real smut scenes?

Worst book I’ve ever read … Colleen Hoover is wrong for that

Never read any of her stuff. Sounds like tripe.

I found it terrible in a charming way, if that makes sense.

I am convinced that anyone out there - TikTok and everywhere else - who is recommending it is playing an elaborate prank. Surely no one read this and thought it was…good?

When I got to the letter I clapped the book covers together and just said NOPE. It wasn’t clever, it wasn’t well written, it was STUPID.

Unpopular opinion. I LOVED Verity!!!!

Me too!!

THE NAMES. I thought I was reading about some kind of Texas beauty pageant.

lol i loved this book and hated it ends with us

What gets me is the random death at the beginning what was that all about? What was the reason? How did he just fall in love with her after seeing death???

I've seen this criticism before, and I don't understand why that needs to have a reason. It was a random death, something that happens. It's an interesting and attention grabbing anecdote used to kick the book off, that's all. Also, where was it indicated that he fell in love with her "after seeing death"? He was a fan of her writing prior to that, and they gradually fell in love with each other throughout the book.

Why was there a random sleep walking scene???? What purpose did it have in the story?

This was actually a pretty big plot point, not random at all. Lowen describes struggling with sleepwalking, it's the reason she wants a lock on her door, its the reason Jeremy installs multiple locks on her door and one on Verity's. The sleepwalking backstory set up multiple scenes in the book, and also alludes to Lowen having mental issues which makes her thoughts an accusations about Verity faking everything more questionable.

Who reads a manuscript that god damn slow JERMEY READ IT IN ONE SITTING? i mean he already knew about it but still MY GOD.

Pacing. I agree it didn't make a ton of sense that she spent three hours reading one of Verity's books and then read one chapter of the juicier manuscript - but maybe she legitimately felt like she was violating her privacy. Either way, she had to read it at that pace for the sake of the book's pacing and tension building.

I think the best plot twist would’ve been Jeremy and Rowen turning out to be the real villains.

That's exactly how the bonus chapter ended, isn't it? Jeremy literally murdered an innocent woman, Lowen knows all about it and doesn't say anything. They are villains.

There are fair criticisms to have with this book, but I feel like it gets unnecessary hate just because of its popularity. It's a fun read and keeps you guessing and engaged with the story.

😂😂😂😂

I don't really know what you expected..? Colleen Hoover is well known garbage.

>She is a good awful writer

Not sure if this is a typo or a brain twister but works either way.

YES the child abuse was just a big wow i stg i could not remember the fmcs name to save my life

got you!

RIGHT? WHAT WAS THE POINT?

oh most definitely it genuinelyfelt like every scene

HAHAH good one

right and don’t even get me started on her biting her teeth in to the SAME place verity did she’s OBSESSED

i am a very angry reddit person thank you very much!

defending????? oh god what is going awwnnnnn

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see i read it because this youtuber rated it 5 stars… i don’t know how if i’m being honest

but i think you should read it for the shits n giggles

i had to stop reading and listen to it in audio because it was soooo blah and i was going to read another book from her based off how this one was but um. no

i called it a horror bc i genuinely thought loren was seeing shit never been so utterly “WTF?” in my life

oh VERY wrong indeed

it was very amusing to read tho got a lot of laughs at how awful it is

My favorite part about this review is OP having zero regard for FMC's name lmao

It’s books like this that make me want to write a shit book and make thousands

PEOPLE CRIED OVER IT that’s what gets me!!

everyone has an opinion i’m glad you enjoyed it it just wasn’t for me tho

haven’t read that one but i’m glad you enjoyed the book it just wasn’t for me tho

i could care less about a books popularity if it’s not good it’s not good and imma state what i think isn’t good which i did

all the points you said where vaild but also does not change my opinion on how much i hated it just how this won’t change ur opinion

thank u for taking the time to state what u believe tho

i’ve never read her books and then i watched a youtuber who said it was a 5 star read and that she loved it

she lied to me. 😭

HAHAHAH i swear i couldn’t remember her name to save my life as soon as it was said the first time it flew out of my mind

RIGHT! the money i could make from writing about bj’s oh wow

i said the part of them being villains before i read the exclusive chapter

That's totally fair. Also, wasn't trying to accuse you of disliking it because of its popularity, I meant that as more of a general observation from other criticisms I've seen. Sorry if it came across that way!

I hated ‘it ends with us’ too. ig her Books have become some fashion thingy in book reading. I see so many peeps in my friend circle just reading one of her books and then posting it on social media.

oh no worries at all i know text isn’t the best way of showing what was actually meant to say! i totally respect you stating what you feel is good about the book

i didn’t really go in depth of what you said my bad

the random death did grab my attention but it also left me thinking they could’ve meet another way that wasn’t so gruesome

the indication of him falling in love with her was when they where in bed and i think they where doing it for the first time i can’t remember and he said he fell in love with her at the coffee shop or something like that i could misinterpreted wrong but when he said that i was just thinking “you fell in love with her after seeing that???? “

the sleepwalking just seemed very unnecessary to me but i would’ve thought she was crazy anyway

i get the tension building of her reading the book slow but man it was very annoying

it really wasn’t a fun read for me more of a wow i can’t believe i read this. and i still can’t get over the fact someone cried over it but hey everyone has different reactions

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that’s one of the books i was going to read depending on how this book went… as you can see i won’t be reading that one

Me too! I really enjoyed it.

Yes! Our book club got a big kick out of the absurdity.

I just finished this book and felt the same way. It felt so strung together and the too graphic sex scenes next to the child abuse scenes were extremely weird. I kept thinking there would be something to tie everything together but it just fizzled out at the end with a shrug. I think if the main character had been hallucinating the faking that would have been way more interesting. I just found out about the extra chapter which honestly just makes the ending even worse.

It was horrible. I didn't have a library membership at the time, and I can't believe I spent money on it. Total garbage.

Me too, at how BAD it was!!! 😭😭😭

No one gives Colleen Hoover better publicity than women claiming they hate Colleen Hoover. Even as they proceed to read her entire bibliography.

this is the first book i’ve read by her wanted to see what all the hype was about definitely won’t be reading another book by her

Not sure how to word it but most of the book takes place in the Crawford home... I just felt like it was quite dry, I had my fingers crossed for a house robbery or something. It's not like I don't enjoy books which take place in the same location, I rated 'Five Survive' five stars and that book will clearly make some people uneasy around tight areas.

I concur, what a dissappointment

yes, long live Verity. honestly, Verity's knife had more personality than lowen. Jeremy wasn't even that attractive, idk why people were simping over him, he was literally so basic.

also lowen is so much scarier that Verity, like that girl jumped off of a porch ledge just like that, with no explanation behind her sleep walking, she also walked into Verity's room and just slept on her bed and is obsessed with a dead person?! her whole personality is just "my mum died I'm so depressed. I'm such a quirky character who totally isn't basic like every other character.

Verity was the only good part about this book, even though what she did was extremely shitty, her character was better than Jeremy and lowen, she was kinda well written and better than 90% of colleen's other characters

Having had no context on Colleen Hoover books beyond how popular they were, I naively assigned too much credit to this book thinking it was gonna reveal some interesting “mad woman” themes and how men manipulate them. Cuz Jeremy can’t be THAT perfect, right? Stiff as a board, allegedly a freak in bed, I was SOOOOOO sure something was up. I was envisioning a Sharp Objects moment where he was keeping Verity ill so he could be her forever caretaker, like some twisted coping mechanism for the loss of his children and need for control…

NOPE. He’s just a perfect little sex fiend. Verity is just crazy… or is sheeeee????? And nothing but flowers for our deliciously slow reader slowen! I screamed every time she’d read a chapter, put it down, fret about how vile Verity is, then tell NO ONE. This book was a lesson in managing expectations.

It would be so funny if the part about their mannerism was somehow connected?

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I loved it too!

I read better fan fiction than this published shit

It's better than any of her other books. She's a horrible writer.

I was so excited to read Verity. And then it was terrible.

I FORGOT SHE JUMPED HAHAHA

omg you put exactly what i thought it would be in words i was so disappointed

OH MOST DEFINITELY

she made WORSE? oh god

I swear Colleen Hoover comes up with the dumbest ways to spell character names I’ve ever read. Some of my least favourites include: Layken, Chastin, Allysa, and Seven. She also named her main character in It Ends with Us “Lily Bloom” which is so cringey to me.

Verity is the worst book I have ever read in my entire life and I am GOBSMACKED by the amount of people I like and respect rating this shit 5 stars. Jeremy is the most boring piece of white bread and yet two women are going absolutely INSANE over him??? Lowen takes days to read what is possibly the shortest manuscript ever?? A manuscript which, by the way, is just sex. Most of this book is just sex. I was praying for it to end. Please god let it end.

Verity also deserves an Oscar for managing to fool an entire hospital, care staff, etc. that she wasn't actually disabled and was fine. And how did she avoid flinching when Lowen tried to make her flinch? Is that even possible? Wouldn't that be really fucking hard to learn? But there's no explanation of Verity's prize winning skills.

There's also a lot of moments where I felt distinctly like "this is uncomfortable" but that weren't noted at all. First, at the start, Jeremy and Lowen are in a random men's bathroom to clean her up because she's covered in blood, right? And in front of this ABSOLUTE STRANGER she takes off her shirt. Okay, fine, maybe she doesn't mind. But then Jeremy proceeds to LOCK THE DOOR and instead of finding this strange or alarming, Lowen is like aww! How kind of him!

And later in the book, it's established that she has a problem with sleepwalking and will even unlock her own door and go outside. Jeremy proposes installing another lock so that he can lock her in from the outside and she can't leave the room UNTIL HE LETS HER. Once again, this is seen not as alarming or terrifying (she barely even knows him!!!!) but she's like omg aww that's so sweet of him. I also thought this lock was going to be a big deal, but like many of the things in this book (the sleepwalking included), absolutely nothing happened with it. Idk what the point of it all was.

Absolute shite. I read it for a laugh and I wasn't even laughing, just furious at the popularity of such a godawful book. I couldn't even call it a thriller because Lowen is almost immediately like, I think Verity is faking being disabled, and bam! Yes! That's the case! And the letter was so fucking stupid. What an annoying twist. I don't even care whether Verity was evil or not.

Plus, and this is definitely more of a personal take, it seems from reading and watching reviews of Hoover's other books that the ideal end goal of every single female character is to settle down with a man and have babies. She's a bit obsessed with it (speaking of, how insanely fertile are the ladies in Verity?!). So the fact that Verity's evil actions come because she doesn't want these things... It gives me bad vibes. I'm not saying that Hoover is doing this deliberately, by any means, but I think the ideal woman being one that marries and demurely becomes a mother and the evil woman being one that doesn't want to be a mother and that doesn't love her kids isn't the greatest.

And my final question: who the fuck is BITING INTO A HEADBOARD??? How strong are their teeth?!

What book are you referencing?

You're making me regret downloading the It Ends with Us audiobook...

Lily BLOSSOM Bloom, to make it even worse

FOR REAL i can’t believe there’s debate on it.. the letter is just so dumb lol

You have to read it to know if you like it or not lol

My book tube and booktok is shitting all over this author right now lol

book tube lied to me and said it was 5 star upsetting

How? Everything was valid critique. It's not like she came for Hoover's family and dignity.

Verity is the entire reason i stopped taking book recommendations from tik tok. The only time I didn’t have a grimace on my face was when I would put it down and ask myself why the fuck i was reading it lol. I felt like I was 13 again reading a sex crazed wattpad fanfic written by another 13 year old, but somehow worse??

I've always been blessed by book and music algorithms, so I've managed to miss or be notified of things that are BS.

I've also just started noticing this very worrying trend of lack of quality+abuse is actually love in almost all romances, of any subgenre, so I avoid them like the plague now.

I fkn hate the whole manuscript vs. letter thing, because it doesn't allow the reader to figure it out. There are reasons why both wouldn't be true. If Jeremy was at fault, how tf did he walk away without a scratch after crashing the car into the tree? If Verity is at fault, what was her motivation for faking her disability? I could go on, but there are far too many holes for both sides, which doesn't make for a fun ending, just a convoluted one.

I actually liked it lol. I think it's one of her better books. I hated the main girl and husband right away from beginning and saw them as villains. Poor kid.

For me, the whole sleep walking thing felt hyper dramatic. I was waiting for some reason so suspect Lowen as a potentially unreliable narrator, and after that "reveal" I was left thinking, wait... that's it? I respect your overall opinion, but I think it faces criticism because the general consensus is that it's *not* a fun read that keeps you guessing. Most feel it's quite bland and predictable.

yea poor kid he is all messed up now he’s a a little psycho jr

i think wattpad is too generous i’ve read better sex scenes from there than this crap of blowjobs every two seconds😭

I’m thoroughly convinced at this point that Colleen Hoover has never, not once, been in a healthy romantic relationship where her partner was gentle and caring. Or she’s never been in an actual romantic relationship, at all. Either way, it’s sad AND concerning because what she finds “cute” is definitely….. not cute quirky silly mood material.

Why do you think that it's the author and not the character she wrote that finds it cute?

> Also, I couldn't help but notice that the voice of Verity in her manuscript and her phrases were super similar to the speaking style of Lowen. Like... every person's personality and mannerisms felt the same.

that's been a longstanding problem of CH. she just can't write different characters. if you have read the It Ends With Us duo, you'd probably agree with me that the letter of a 30-something Atlas sounds exactly the same as the diaries of the 16yo Lily, not to mention they talk the same too.

Welp, I'm definitely gonna read this now.

how dare you forget about our beloved RYLE KINCAID?

Jesus Christ even my spell check marked both of his names in red *eyerolling*

Lmao a few friends started recommending Hoover’s books to me a while back, they all said to read verity, so I did and omg lol I also didn’t think it was a particularly great read. I really wanted to rip on that book to my friends but they’re all fairly new to reading and they loved it so much, I just shut my mouth and let them enjoy it but secretly hated it.

I read it off a TikTok recommendation and I was looking for something cuckoo. It did not disappoint. It reminded me of something that would have been word of mouth viral in middle school = exactly what I hoped TikTok would deliver.

My first and definitely last book by this author. I will say it was at least very easy to read. I didn’t hate maybe the first third or so. It got so stupid

Its the "choose your truth" ending for me. So stupid. Verity as a character is stupid and gross.

Is there a Colleen Hoover snark sub because I live for reviews like this after being fooled by BookTok/Good Reads too many times.

>!On the “therapeutic” point about fantasizing child abuse, i think thats the point. Like it’s open ended as to whether or not she actually did those things or not.!<

Please be serious

i think it’s time to tell them the truth and then recommend them a better book

they are LIARS don’t trust them trust reddit 😭

Yeah I definitely recommended some better ones but I thought it would be hurtful if I trashed the book that they liked

understandable maybe not totally trash it but just yk state just a few things that happened that made you not like it as much as them every one should have a chance to voice their opinions

wait until you hear about her daughter Emerson DORY Kincaid

I think CH read Twilight and then "headboard destroyed during sex? 😳😳 write that down write that down"

Okay but Emerson is a cute name, ngl

I really hated it too. I can only be mad at myself for reading something I knew would be garbage. The "lol maybe it was all just a goofy little writing exercise" was a genuinely insulting Shyamalan esque ending.

I was kind of appalled by the local moms who posted to fb that this was like the most amazing piece of literature they'd ever encountered. Then I read it and thought maybe I should go back and make a note of who liked it so I could keep them at a distance... but no... I don't wanna know. There is just no accounting for taste.

Literally the only point of the MC being a sleepwalker needing to be locked in and her mom dying/losing the apartment/trauma superpak was that one moment where Verity locks them in the room. Jeremy breaks out from the window and comes back around to unlock it from the outside iirc? I forget what but it bought Verity an extra 60 seconds to do…something. Idk it was dumb and convoluted, she could have easily just set up an old house with finicky locks to add to a creepy atmosphere.

I haven’t read any of Colleen Hoover’s books and reading this makes me not want to. I only want to read one just because what I’ve been hearing about her books and am curious on if I’d like them or not. And this one was going to be the one I was gonna try and read first. Now not sure if I want to.

I can feel your frustrations through the screen; so much so that you’ve conjured up all the bad memories I have of reading this book. I could not get into it.

A friend told me the other day that Colleen Hoover has said she “wants to write rom coms but just cant figure out how” and I was like mmm I think Colleen needs to go to therapy so she can write those rom coms she wants to write.

Because you write what you know and every single one of her books romanticizes abuse to a disgusting degree.

Lots of actual people romanticize abuse. That might be a reason her books are popular. The drama and the strife. It has an audience, which is probably why she writes about it.

Oh ffs 🤦‍♀️I mean, the woman can’t even keep her occupation drama and conflict-free. But this is exactly what I’m saying. She can’t write a romcom because she’s never had a happy, cute romantic relationship.

And to be clear: I’m not criticizing her for possibly having had only abusive relationships in her life and becoming desensitized to it. But I am criticizing her for passing abuse off as simply “enemies to lovers” - except without them ever loving each other - for financial gain. It’s okay to talk about abuse and express what it means to you, but it is not okay to pass it off as something it’s not and misrepresent the dynamic, possibly influencing readers who are in abusive relationships (and already vulnerable and impressionable) into thinking their situation is normal and just “romantically tragic.”

Yeah, that’s concerning and sad. Every single one of those people needs therapy, not a trope.

Having an interest in dark thing doesn't mean you need therapy. There's a bunch of people into true crime. Kidnappings and murders and stuff. Do they all need therapy?

Just because you're not into it doesn't mean people are crazy for being curious about a side of life that's different from theirs.

I gave this book a 1 star rating as well. It’s such a damn drag for such a short book and it was my first Hoover book as well. It instantly became my last especially with all the stuff that has come out about her as a person as well (the Colouring book and situation with her son)

I liked nobody in this book and the weird obsession Lowen had with Verity was just so damn weird, like girl you really be tilting your hips while he’s coming into you while his wife is staring you down from the stairs really?? The fact that she even had the audacity to create a whole new version of the book people had to buy for that one extra chapter of absolute garbage is so ugly to me

yes but she was named after Ryle's brother who he >!accidentally killed and now becomes abusive after the trauma!<, or at least that's how CH framed it in the book

Haha meant to say God

Oh…i take back my compliment LMFAOO thank you

the way i see it, colleen hoover writes fanfic for people who will never read fanfic… outside of like, maybe reylo

I’m referencing The Butcher and The Wren by Alaina Urquhart, the co-host of Morbid.

I had never read Colleen Hoover and decided to try Verity as my intro to her. It was the most ridiculous thing I have read in years.

I honestly cannot talk about this book without summoning some sort of primal rage!

I finished it on a Thursday morning after which I proceeded to rant about it for half an hour in a Starbucks, I understand!

THIS IS WHAT BOTHERED ME THE MOST. It would be so obvious that she was suffocated like????