Book Club Guide

Verity

by Colleen Hoover · 2018 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

The manuscript that may be a confession — or a trap
Trust, gaslighting and what we choose to believe
Dark psychology and the unreliable voice that sounds like truth

About this book

Struggling writer Lowen Ashby is hired to complete a bestselling thriller series after the author Verity Crawford is incapacitated. Working in the Crawford home, Lowen finds a manuscript — an apparent autobiography — that contains a confession of terrible acts. Hoover's dark thriller is about truth, gaslighting and the stories women tell themselves and each other.

Self-published in 2018 and traditionally published in 2022, Verity became a global phenomenon through BookTok. It has sold millions of copies and is frequently paired with Gone Girl in discussions of psychological thriller narrators.

Discussion questions

The central question — is Verity's manuscript a truthful confession or a deliberate fiction — is never definitively answered. How does Hoover use this ambiguity — and do you have a view on what 'really happened'?
Lowen's attraction to Jeremy despite what she reads about him is central to the novel's psychological complexity. What is Hoover saying about desire's willingness to ignore evidence?
The novel plays with notions of the unreliable narrator in a particularly layered way — we are reading a fictional character's account of reading another fictional character's account. How does this structure affect your trust in what you read?
Verity has been enormously popular in book clubs. What does it offer for group discussion — what conversations does it make possible that more literary fiction does not?
Hoover has been criticised for the moral framework of her thrillers. How do you engage with this critique — and does it affect your enjoyment or assessment of the book?