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Colleen Hoover: Verity (2021, Grand Central Publishing) 4 stars

Review of 'Verity' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

2 1/2 stars

This book is hard to rate for a number of reasons. First off, it's not very good, so there's that. Secondly it does keep you reading to find out what fucked up things will happen next so there is that too. It's like a typical "pot boiler" type, easy enough reading, titillating sexual tidbits, which truth be told, I didn't care for, but I know a lot of women do, hense the popularity of books like 50 Shades of Gray etc... plot twists and a big "reveal" at the end which has you scratching your head going... ???!!! So that's kind of a positive because you end up thinking "wha...? What the hell?"

So, I guess I can understand why some people rate it so highly, because all that I mentioned is what they want from pleasure reading. And that's fine. We all have different tastes. I mean some people voted for Trump. But, I don't know. For me I expect a better more believable overall story, better character development, better characters in general. I'm not really interested in thrillers for the most part anyway and hate books like Girl on a Train or Gone Girl.

I don't really have a hard time suspending disbelief. I mean, I read a lot of Stephen King for god's sake and general horror books and dystopian stories and some science fiction. So I CAN suspend disbelief and just go with it pretty easily. But I cannot take gaping plot holes and inexplicable behavior and just straight up kookiness from characters. I can't suspend disbelief that someone can fake being in a vegetative state for months and even medical professional don't catch on I mean, come on.

This book asked way too much from it's readers and I just wasn't interested in the characters or even the plot to forgive it's many flaws. Mostly, the story was boring in between the fucked up parts. Every character was horrible. The sex scenes were cringey. It seemed written from the general formula... unreliable narrator protagonist, hunky studly male character as love interest for protagonist, but maybe he is untrustworthy?, some kind of crime or fucked up thing the protagonist observes usually involving hunky stud and an antagonist, plot twist, some creepy things happeneing, big reveal, the end. Maybe some sex scenes but, hopefully not, haha.

If you like plot twists and fucked up reveals and sex scenes that lack any sexiness whatsoever then maybe this book will be for you. For me, not so much. But that's cool. You probably wouldn't like the kinds of books I rate highly. And I would never, ever, under any circumstance whatsoever, vote for Trump.

ps Team manuscript for life.