This was my first time, and probably last time, reading a Colleen Hoover book. I picked it up since so many people were raving about it, saying that Hoover’s psychological thrillers are much better than her normal fare. Well, I have thoughts about this book and…yeah, they’re mostly negative. This post will have spoilers, don’t read further if you are looking to read this book.
Our protagonist is Lowen, a thirty-something single author who just recently lost her mother after a long batter with cancer. On the brink of financial ruin, with her mother’s mounting medical debts and her lack of successful sales from her previous published works, Lowen is given the deal of a lifetime. But let’s back up first. When Lowen is on her way to the meeting at her publisher’s, she witnesses a man get run over by a truck. His blood is quite literally all over her. This is when I should have put this book down. A kind, handsome stranger asks her if she is okay, takes her to a coffee shop and gives her the shirt off his back so she can change out of her bloody blouse. A stranger who tells her that he has seen worse things, including losing his twin girls in separate tragic freak accidents. LOL.
So now we’re on to the meeting. This is the deal of a lifetime; she has been asked to co-author the final three installments of famous author Verity Crawford’s international best selling series. After being involved in a serious car accident, Verity was left significantly incapacitated and can’t finish her series. And who else it as this meeting? Why the handsome stranger from earlier – Verity’s husband, Jeremy. Lowen initially rejects the offer, but after a quick word with Jeremy, she triples the financial compensation and accepts the deal. In order to get into Verity’s headspace, Jeremy suggest that Lowen spend some time at their Vermont home to read through Verity’s research, and right here is when this book stopped making any sense.
**HEAVY SPOILERS BELOW**
Once Lowen arrives at the home and makes herself acquainted with Verity’s office, the only materials she reads pertaining to the novels are…the novels. She doesn’t read Verity’s research, or previous manuscripts, or outlines. She literally just reads the other novels from the series, which she could have gotten at Barnes and Noble. The only other thing that she reads aside from the other novels is a manuscript that Verity seemingly buried in her desk drawer. Very quickly Lowen realizes this is a memoir. It details Verity and Jeremy’s first meeting, their copious amounts of sex and Verity’s sheer obsession with everything Jeremy. And then it details the night that they conceive their twins, which is when things go sideways. Verity does not want to be a mother, but she begrudgingly accepts this pregnancy because it will make Jeremy happy. But once she realizes that Jeremy will love these twins more than her, she tries to abort her pregnancy with a coat hanger.
This is when Lowen realizes that Verity is a fucking psycho. The woman upstairs, who is being spoon fed mashed potatoes by an at home nurse, tried to kill her twin girls in utero. Lowen is rightfully horrified and now doesn’t know if she can continue this series. Does she leave the home and go back to New York? Of course not. Is she beginning to develop feelings for Jeremy? Absolutely. Is Jeremy’s sole living child, Crew, telling Lowen that he is having conversations with Verity, who is supposed to be paralyzed and nonverbal? You betcha.
Lowen does not tell Jeremy about the memoir, even though they have started sleeping together. She does not tell Jeremy even after she swears that she sees Verity standing at the top of the stairs in the home, or when items are moved or doors are being locked around the house. Things come to a head when Verity finally reads in the memoir how the twins actually died. Chastin, Verity’s favorite child, suffered with a severe peanut allergy and was accidentally exposed at a sleep over, resulting in her death. Verity blames Harper, the twin who was diagnosed with autism, for Chastin’s death. She bides her time and waits until the has the opportunity to exact revenge, and does so by taking Harper and Crew out on a lake in a canoe. She tells Crew to hold his breath and tips over the canoe, forcing the three into the water and drowning Harper. In the aftermath, Jeremy knows that Verity had something to do with Harper’s death but can’t pin it down.
It is at this point that Lowen decides to tell Jeremy about Verity’s memoir, the details of Harper’s murder, and everything Verity ever did. Events ensue and ultimately it comes out – Verity has been faking the extent of her injuries and Jeremy kills her by asphyxiating her in a similar manner that she described trying to kill Harper as a baby. Fast forward seven months, Lowen is pregnant with Jeremy’s child and they are relocating from Vermont to North Carolina. She has finished the outline for the final three books in Verity’s series and is working on completing the seventh novel. As they are packing up the Vermont home, Lowen finds a letter that Verity wrote to Jeremy in which she details that the memoir was a (here comes the twist) writing exercise. LMAO.
She details in 7 pages how the memoir was a way for her to get into the mind of her protagonist of her series, since she writes from the perspective of the villain. She tried to get into the mindset of someone who is so, so evil to better connect with her material. Of course she never hated her twins! Of course she never tricked Jeremy into knocking her up with Crew! How could he possibly think that she murdered Harper! That was all for the writing exercise. Because that’s what every sane person does after losing a child, use it as inspiration in their fake memoir writing exercise.
And the other revelation of the letter – Jeremy had read the memoir way before meeting Lowen. In fact, he’s the reason Verity was ever in the accident, since he bound her, dragged her into their Range Rover and drove it head first into a tree after reading it. Somehow he came out unscathed, setting up the scene to make it seem like an accident that Verity was in alone.
Does Lowen run out of the house screaming knowing that she is now pregnant with the child of a murderer? NO. She instead rips the letter into pieces and eats it. She will never tell Jeremy about the letter. That will be her secret until her death. THE END.
It was made very clear to me by this book that Hoover desperately wanted to write something ala Gillian Flynn. But what Hoover lacks is really developed, fully fleshed out characters and a believable plot. One of my favorite thrillers is Flynn’s Sharp Objects. You can feel the dread coming off Camille as she returns to her childhood home as a traumatized, high functioning alcoholic. On the contrary, I have no sympathy for Lowen and honestly think she is just as bad as Verity. As for the gratuitous smut, it was not enough to save this book for me.