Verity

Earlier this month I finished the audio for Verity, and holy smokes I’m still not sure how to write the review for this. I mainly listened to this book on my daily walks, and I’m pretty sure I scared the people in my neighborhood since I kept talking to the story as I was listening to it. I think I hit a new record for saying holy sh#& over and over.

Verity is a fiendishly/psychotically clever and mind-bending type of a book. It’s a hall of mirrors where everything is a vacant reflection, including the people who live there. Hoover lures and tricks and sets obstacles to drive you into her toils. She wields her unreliable characters to stunning effect, confounding, disturbing and delighting in turn, and draws you into a world where illusion informs reality and time enfolds hauntingly. Not only is nothing what it seems, it’s not even what it seems after it’s been revealed to be not what it seems. I was entrapped in this story long before I even realized that the net has been cast.

And, oh my God, the ending. It struck me backhanded. Verity offers you no solidity of truth that you could hold in your hands. Even as I was listening to the last chapter, I was mining it for clues, trying to make sense of something so innately senseless. Everything I’ve listened to up until that point felt like a false memory, and I was left shaking my fist at the whole book for leaving me to...well...I’ll let you read it to figure out what I mean!😜