Book Review: Verity by Colleen Hoover

 I finally read Verity by Colleen Hoover, which was published two years before McFadden's The Wife Upstairs. The irony is, Verity was on New York Times Bestseller list for months and yet, I didn't feel inclined to read it until after I've read The Wife Upstairs, which wasn't even on a bestseller list! 

I'm not a fan of Hoover's work. I've read some of her books (It Ends With Us being one of them), and I haven't really liked or disliked them enough to write a review on them. 

But the reviews raved about Verity, and said The Wife Upstairs was just a fan fiction. Verity, apparently, was the first thriller Hoover ventured into. A personal Indie project, her website said. For a first attempt at writing thrillers, I must say it's really good. 

Now, how does it compare with The Wife Upstairs? What's similar?

1. The Characters.

Verity: Lowen was a struggling writer who could no longer afford to pay rent. She was commissioned to finish the remaining three novels out of a nine-novel series by Jeremy, the husband of Verity, a best-selling author who was semi-comatose after an accident. 

TWU: Sylvia was about to be turned out on the streets. She was hired by Adam Barnett, a best-selling author to be a companion to his wife Vicky, who was semi-paralyzed after an accident.

2. The Location.

Verity: Lowen had to stay in Verity & Jeremy's house to go through her notes and story outlines for the remaining three novels. The house and Verity creeped her out.

TWU: Sylvia had to stay in Adam and Vicky's house, a huge, gated mansion in a remote area. The house creeped Sylvia out.

3. The Plot.

Verity: Whilst going through the stacks of notes that Verity had in her office, Lowen discovered Verity's autobiography, which revealed horrifying and evil secrets.

TWU: Vicky pointed to a drawer and gestured with her hand that she wanted Sylvia to read her diary, which detailed a troubled marriage between her and Adam.

With the similarities out of the way, how do these two books really compare, writing-wise? In my personal opinion, I find Hoover's Verity to have a stronger voice. The autobiography was savage, for want of a better word. No doubt it had too many pages of explicit sexual act (think Fifty Shades of Grey), just like McFadden's TWU had too many pages of adoration for Adam, but the voice was strong and demanded your undivided attention.

Vicky in TWU had an easily dismissed voice, by comparison. I couldn't help thinking why she didn't just ditched Adam. 

Although there was extra-marital sex committed in the marital home in the marital bed, in TWU the protagonist had a conscience and decided to end the affair.

In Verity, Lowen had no such qualms. She even suggested that Jeremy placed Verity in a nursing home so that he could move on and have a life (with her, Lowen). Talk about a home-breaker! I had no sympathy for her, nor did I care about her being creeped out by Verity. 

And the ending? TWU had a more believable twist. Verity's twist left me in disbelief. Not disbelief in a good way, but disbelief as in, what evidence was there for me to believe that crap? I read and re-read, but no, it just didn't do it for me. That letter in the end wasn't a twist. The autobiography was the truth, the voice was real and authoritative. The letter was a feeble attempt to manipulate Jeremy into believing her innocence.

Read also: The Wife Upstairs

Book Review: The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

 The Silent Patient opened with Alicia Berenson's diary. It began with "I don't know why I'm writing this. That's not true. Maybe I do know and just don't want to admit it to myself." And she went on to write about how much she loved her husband Gabriel so much so that she.....here she stopped and wrote "No I won't write about that. This is going to be a joyful record of ideas and images. No crazy thoughts allowed." 

With that, I was reeled in hook, line and sinker. With such an introduction, you knew there were going to be layers in the story, with plot twists.

At thirty-three years old, Alicia shot her husband five times when he came home one night after work and then went completey silent while her therapist, obssessed at finding out her motive, continued to work on her.

The story is told from the therapist's point of view and the silent Alicia's diary. At a certain point in the story, I started to wonder if one of the narration is reliable. Did Alicia kill her husband or did someone else do it? If so, why did she keep silent? Who was she protecting? Or who was she afraid of? Those were my questions as I kept reading. 

The answer wasn't what I expected, but it explained everything neatly. A well-written story, it kept me glued to the end.