I Read ‘Verity’ by Colleen Hoover, and I’m Team Manuscript

This article contains spoilers for the book Verity by Colleen Hoover 

After finishing Colleen Hoover’s romance-thriller novel, Verity, there was a lot to unpack and a lot of questions to be debated regarding Verity Crawford’s true intentions. 

After Lowren Ashleigh gets her big break, she is chosen to finish author Verity Crawford’s hit book series after Verity goes through a terrible car accident and ends up in a paralyzed state. Little does Lowren know, however, she is signing an agreement that comes with so much more than just writing books. 

Lowren is soon invited into the Crawford household by Verity’s husband Jeremy, where she plans to spend a few days in Verity’s office collecting information and learning Verity’s writing style to further continue her series, but when she finds a manuscript for what looks like a potential book entitled So Be It, Lowren uncovers more about Verity’s life than readers can imagine.  

Throughout the book, Hoover lays out a past and present flashback format that ends up giving the reader insight into Verity’s life through her manuscript. When Lowren ends up reading it, she uncovers Verity’s traumatic experiences and secrets, including the loss of her children, her confession that she murdered one of them, her hard time connecting with her children, her obsession with her husband, and other terrible acts. After reading about these sickening events, Lowren begins sensing and experiencing some unexplainable hauntings in the Crawford household, and thinks that the now-paralyzed Verity Crawford isn’t so affected by her car accident as she shows she is. 

At the end of the book, Lowren finds a letter hidden under the floor that Verity has addressed to Jeremy, explaining the manuscript and her pure intentions behind it. As a plan to grow her audience and share her experience as a writer, she claims the reasoning for her manuscript was to act as a self-help book for aspiring thriller authors trying to connect to their trauma in order to make a villain out of their stories and their characters. She explains how she never acted upon the things she wrote about and how she purposefully presented herself to look evil in her manuscript. The book ends with Lowren ripping the manuscript, flushing it down the toilet, and continuing her life with her newfound husband, Jeremy Crawford.

After the release of this book, there was an insane amount of debate about Verity Crawford’s true intention: Is she evil? Do we believe the manuscript or the letter?

After much further debate, I have set some reasons of my own as to why I am personally team manuscript, and why I think Verity Crawford is actually evil and the antagonist in Colleen Hoover’s novel: 

Verity’s Childhood and Family 

Unlike Jeremy’s, Verity’s childhood described throughout the book was never a positive one. There were so many questionable things that her parents said and the way they raised her that it’s possible that may be why Verity turned out to be evil and was unable to connect with her kids. Jeremy was the only one who was able to love her unconditionally, and because she never had that kind of love before from her parents, she couldn’t bear watching her husband love her children in the same way and she became desperate and selfish.

Why Didn’t her manuscript have a disclaimer?

If this so-called potential self-help book’s true purpose was to help other writers, why didn’t it say that on the front cover along with the title? If Verity knew she had all these eerie and traumatic events attached to her name, wouldn’t she have made it clear that the dark subject matter she was talking about in the manuscript had a solid purpose other than framing herself as a villainous monster?  

Chastin’s Birthmark

If Verity’s intentions are pure, how does one explain Chastin’s birthmark? Relating back to Verity’s attempt at causing a miscarriage, I believe Chastin’s birthmark stayed with her throughout her entire life because of her mother’s villainous acts during her pregnancy. 

To wrap up my conspiracies, I believe Verity Crawford’s letter was one last failed attempt to save herself and try to win Jeremy back, and I think her intentions were nothing but terrible. If you haven’t read Verity by Colleen Hoover, you really should! Despite all the controversy around her books, you won’t regret it!

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