Update: the stuff that bugged me still bothers me days later, so downgrading it from 3 stars to 2.

Let’s talk about Verity.

This seems to be pretty polarizing, and I thought it’d be down to how sex was handled or maybe some weird stuff with consent. But turns out the ending really is just something you’ll buy into or not, imo, so it makes sense to me now. Personally, I thought the ending hampered an enjoyable thriller with horror elements and I had expected it to be mostly symbolic or something else; something more cerebral.

Though, in retrospect, perhaps precisely because so many reviews were like ‘that ending tho!!’ I was thinking about the most unlikely scenario, and so wasn’t that far off the mark, in the end. I generally like books that withhold catharsis. But I also like my fiction to be capital a About something. Which this tries to do, and I’m not all that convinced actually does? There are alternate endings that could have communicated a clear message that would have actually made it pretty interesting; particularly about grief, shame, misogyny, or guilt.

Instead it puts all its eggs in the twist basket and when you really look at it, you pretty much have to suspend a lot of disbelief and Like The Twist, or else be left a bit cold and unsatisfied. Because I was looking for it and was partially right, plus I actually quite enjoyed it up to the end, I came away liking but not loving it. 3 stars.

***Spoilers beyond here***
Okay, so what did people guess was happening here? I actually really want to know.

I was pretty sure the husband had read the manuscript and had either killed his kids and attempted to kill Verity, which is why she was “comatose”, up until the first sighting of Verity. At which point I thought he might be drugging her so she kept being bed ridden but was fighting to move and such sometimes, and biding her time to jet with her kid.

That manuscript did its job for me from the get go. I didn’t buy it whatsoever and I actually liked that it subverted the straight male fantasy of a cock hungry woman, and how if women actually were like that, it’d be horrific. And just not surprising at all that the husband didn’t know his wife at all. And the first thing we find out about the husband was that he’s pretty desensitized to car crashes, is emotionally unavailable, and acts “strange”. And then oh btw, his wife was in a car accident. Okay killer.

Where the real suspension of disbelief comes in for me is that she could actually pretend to be like that, hooked up to machines and with a nurse and everyone’s just like naw yeah she’s comatose for sure. I’ve seen “scans” of her and all that. Obvs the husband lied, but like, the nurse should have been aware and tests would have ferreted out that? And like, I didn’t do the exact timeline, but just waiting for cash to leave feels real thin? Probably got mad money from the books.. couldn’t transfer it when the husband is busy and peace? I dunno, pretty thin.

And then the added dimension that it was SO close to being more interesting as relating to possibly using events as symbolism for the ways in which the husband, let’s face it, Probably gaslit or was abusive to his wife. Certainly has something to say about institutional patriarchy with how the women behave. But still. Feels so close to something more substantial to me, no?