“Does he feel like home to you?” This question was asked in a movie called Midsommar, directed by Ari Aster. I decided to watch this movie earlier in the year, not long before I read Verity. I realised the movie had a lot of similarities with Colleen Hoover’s novel (and not just a mutual age restriction). They both include trauma, relationships, and more importantly a sense of perverse perseverance, it needs to be finished.
Colleen Hoover is the author who has outsold the Bible by over 3 million copies. How has she done this? Booktok. When TikTok initially launched in 2016, I was not convinced that the app would do me any good, I was happy with YouTube. But in 2018, I decided I would try it, which turned out to be the best idea ever. Booktok was the first thing I came across on TikTok, a whole world of books with many reviews, just waiting to be read. Verity, It Ends With Us (Colleen Hoover) and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (Taylor Jenkins Reid) were the thriving books I saw to begin with, and as I kept searching, there were many more.
Verity was first published in February 2020, just before lockdown. I decided to read it this year and I am not lying when I say that it changed me. Even with the first sentence, you’re immediately hooked. Hoover has a way of guaranteeing that the reader is going to read her book and finish it because each starting sentence is weirdly hypnotic. Some deem her to be overrated, but the way she can control and manipulate your emotions is mesmerising.
Before Verity, I never had a problem with putting a book down and saving it for another day, until I got to around Chapter 4. There are two perspectives in Verity and I think that’s what encouraged me to read on. Why two perspectives? Is one more significant than the other? Something which did become apparent, was that I learnt about different sides of characters, the duplicity engraved in each chapter.
“Does he feel like home to you?” I can assure you, this book will not make you feel homely. You will feel a kaleidoscope of emotions at once; amazement, perhaps unease, and possibly even worry for Colleen Hoover's imagination. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who is open to reading something different, something suspenseful and thrilling. I could definitely reread it and still enjoy it just as much as the first time.
