I'm disappointed but not surprised to be giving Verity a lower score than I was anticipating. While I was reading it, the book sat a solid three stars for me. I have issues with the book, such as the writing style (it's very juvenile and filled with repetition) and the characters not feeling as fleshed out as they could have been, but I was mostly enjoying the book... until I read the extra chapter Colleen Hoover published in the new edition of the book. I hated it so much that I had to take a full star off my rating.

I'm going to start at the beginning, though. The repetition I mentioned before starts right away.

I can't tell you how many times we were told that Lowen didn't leave her apartment because her mom died.

It was like it was said every other paragraph. Since it's a big event in someone's life, I definitely understand it being mentioned more than once, but the way it was brought up is almost entirely the same every time. This is just one example of repetition; another is the use of the phrase "in this house". None of it feel intentional or clever, but instead like Hoover should have gotten an editor.

Additionally, I think the character's were not fleshed out well enough and some parts of the plot seemed to disappear out of thin air.

One things that bugged me was that Hoover was weaving this web of different characters falling in love with people due to reading about them rather than actually getting to know them. Corey and Jeremy did this with Lowen and Lowen did this with Jeremy, yet there was no pay off to this whatsoever.

I also don't understand what drew both Verity and Lowen to Jeremy. He felt like cardboard cut-out rather than a human being.

He's a great father and his favorite food (according to Verity) was chicken dumplings... that's really all we got.

Despite these problems, I was invested in the story. I did like the characters enough, and the mystery surrounding Verity

possibly faking her condition

was well done.

I liked that Lowen started to act as crazy like Verity since it brought everything full circle. I loved the baby monitor scenes. Verity's death scene was intense - my heart was really racing along with Lowen's.

I was gobbling that shit up.

This brings me to the last big talking point: team manuscript or team letter?

I'm team manuscript. The manuscript was gross, but it felt more genuine. I did end up flip-flopping a few times throughout the letter until I read the part where Verity said she was writing the letter while she could hear Lowen and Jeremy having sex and admitted she locked Jeremy in the room. This, for me, cemented the fact that this letter was nothing more than one last manipulation on Verity's part, one last parting gift for Lowen to mess with her head. 

And boy, did Verity get her wish. She fucked with Lowen so bad that the epilogue couldn't shut up about her. In the epilogue, Lowen is simultaneously more self-aware than she was in the original book and more destructive than ever.

The entire epilogue felt entirely out of character. I hated it so much - what was the point of any of it, really? It completely ruined "mystery" aspect of whether you believe the manuscript of the letter

since it just made them all, including Crew, into psychopaths

. It was a total cash grab on the author's part.