Book Blog #379: Verity by Colleen Hoover

 

Title: Verity

Author: Colleen Hoover

# of Pages: 333 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Thriller, Mystery

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis: Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of the night her family was forever altered. Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents could devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen's feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife's words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.

Review: Brava, Colleen Hoover, for writing a book in completely different style and genre than I was expecting. I firmly bucketed her as a romance author, but I’m happily proven wrong.

Although there are romance elements, I actually don’t consider Verity to be a romance at all because it’s overpowered by the thriller (and mystery) qualities. It took me a while to sort out my actual thoughts on this book while recovering from the dread/fear I felt while reading.

Verity had plenty of flaws that almost made me rate this 3 stars instead of 4. 

- There’s POV switching in the form of switching between two mediums: Lowell’s (the main character) narration and Verity’s manuscript. Both are in first person, but I actually wasn’t as bothered by this as I usually am. However, it did weaken the story’s grip on my attention because there were times where Lowell’s chapters felt like filler. 

- This is yet another case where an author creates a main character who is ALSO an author or has writing related interest. In Verity, there's actually TWO author characters (Lowell and Verity). But I guess authors "write what they know".

- Hoover was VERY intentional with making this story a thriller. Verity is written to be ominously freaky, and Lowell is the classic jumpy main character whose paranoia is contagious. If this was Hoover’s goal, mission accomplished. That being said, it felt like some cheap ways to make a story creepy in ways that weren’t plot relevant. But I’m not a huge thriller fan, so I can imagine others might love this aspect.

- Without spoiling it, the ending felt rushed, and the extended epilogue was unnecessary or should have been incorporated in the rest of the story. The ending was also divisive (which I liked), but to make it truly defendable, I wish Hoover made sure there was continuity in her story when looking at it from the most common angles. 

But in the end I felt this book earned a low-4 stars:

- This book flowed really well; I read it in a day and couldn’t put it down (but maybe this is because I was too scared?)

- While the beginning felt like a cliche romance (meetcute in the very first chapter really fit with Hoover’s style), the rest of the story was actually not recognizable to me as Hoover’s style at all. I applaud the writing diversity and thought she pulled it off really well without being overly reliant on incorporating romance elements. 

- I like books that make the reader at the end want to go back and overanalyze the story, and this book fits the bill. I couldn’t get this book out of my head and found myself scrolling through fan theories to hear other people’s interpretation of the story. 

- There’s a lot of nuance in the characters; even one’s that are meant to be “villainous” are still realistic and have some admirable qualities (love to hate them). 

- I would actually recommend this book to people, especially since it’s such a quick and gripping read. 

Book Blog #378: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

 

Title: The Vanishing Half

Author: Brit Bennett

# of Pages: 346 (ebook)

Genre: Adult, Historical Fiction

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Synopsis: The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect? Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

Review: Borderline 4 stars.

This book focuses on the Vignes family across multi-generations in a way that reminded me of Pachinko (which I loved!).

While this book is told in 3rd person, there's a LOT of time skipping (not just the big time skips between chapters) back and forth that really disrupts the flow. Every time there was a time skip, I would put the book down, which slowed down my reading pace in a major way.

The main issue was how much time skipping there was that made the story feel too unfocused. I would have connected with the characters more if at least the chapters were told more linearly (so I could learn about these characters as they grow) and/or if the story focused in on one of the generations (so each character can have deeper character development). 

The ending almost made me give this story 4 stars; it wasn't until the ending 20% that I felt more invested in the characters. I also applaud the author tackling interesting topics: 

- complex family relationships: twins are inherently close in ways that siblings who aren't can't fathom. Yet the Vignes twins sudden go down different paths and deal with their familial relationships very differently. 

- acceptance/rejection of identity: one twin leans into their blackness, the other rejects this identity. Their daughters (who are the more interesting and likable characters in this story) are the physical manifestations of their respective choices. The story covers how their differences affect their relationships with those around them and each other (and the surprising ways it doesn't affect them). 

Overall an interesting read, just very slow for over half of the book. I recently read The God of the Woods which had time skipping and was also a slow start, but I actually like the writing style better than the style used in The Vanishing Half. I'd only recommend this book if it already sounds interesting to you!