Verity by Claire Farrell

Title: Verity
Series: Cursed
Author: Claire Farrell
Length: 3425 Kindle units
Rating: 4.5 stars

The Plot

Perdita finds her life increasingly stressful between the restrictions of her overly protective father and the constant harassment from the mean girls at school. Her only reprieve is her recurring dream about a brown-eyed boy who she knows loves her. Then one day that same boy, Nathan, appears in her class, and she feels an instant connection to both him and his sister Amelia. But real-life Nathan does not seem nearly as interested in her as dream Nathan was, and Perdita slowly comes to accept that their relationship may be entirely one-sided. But when strangers start following her around town, she begins to think that there may be more to Nathan than meets the eye.

The Good

Verity was a well-put-together novel that flowed along nicely for the reader without any weird moments to make me stop and shake my head. The characters had a believable high school existence, though I felt bad that none of them had cars, and they all had to take the bus to school. Though they live in Dublin, so I imagine the buses don’t convey quite the same level of shame that American ones would.

I really liked the way Perdita’s circle of friends was set up and developed. When the novel opens, she spends most of her time with her best friend Tammie and her nerdy cousin Joey. Then she becomes friends with Amelia, and it throws a wrench into the smooth functioning of their group. I think Tammie’s character path is particularly interesting, and I enjoy watching Joey being completely oblivious to the drama in the way that only boys can.

The Bad

If you’ve read much of the YA paranormal genre, Verity is probably sounding a lot like at least one or two books that you’ve already read. I mean, girl on the outskirts of the social frontier who dreams of supernatural boy soulmate before she meets him? Oh, and they might all be destined to fulfill an ancient prophesy that threatens the destinies of all supernatural-kind? Yeah, that’s pretty much straight out of the How to Write a Teen Novel 101 textbook. This is not the worst thing that can be said about a book – after all, the formula became formulaic for a reason – but if you’re looking for high levels of originality, this should not be your top pick.

One thing that was slightly “off” about the novel was the villains. Really, very little of the novel had much to do with the actual plot of the bad werewolves coming after Perdita, Nathan, and the rest of the Evans family. Until near the end, all they did was stand around being creepy. And even when they did act, their motivation was not particularly clear. I suspect this is something we will get more of in the sequel.

The Romance

Actually, what I have to say about the romance mirrors what I had to say in the two previous sections. The romance between Nathan and Perdita follows the traditional YA pattern. She dreams about him and instantly recognizes him when she sees him. He then proceeds to blow hot and cold, so she doesn’t know if he really likes her or if this connection she feels between them is completely artificial. Does he really like her? Will he admit his true feelings? Well, if you don’t know, I’m not going to spoil it for you.

The other, and I think more interesting, romance is the one between Joey and Tammie, which follows a much less traditional pattern. Tammie has an incurable crush on Joey, despite the fact that he is not that attractive and entirely unaware of her feelings toward him. The result is Tammie doing any number of things to try to get his attention without actually telling him how she feels. Hijinks ensue, though they are not all of the hilarious kind.

Will I read more?

I downloaded Clarity almost immediately following the completion of Verity, even though I have some trepidation about this rhyming title scheme. I have not finished reading it yet, but I will almost certainly do so soon. I need to find out the true motivations behind these evil wolves. Also, there’s the recurring and potentially interesting issue that Perdita’s mother walked out on the family, that I’m hoping will play out in upcoming plot twists, though I may be wrong.

See Details for Book on    Amazon     Barnes & Noble     Smashwords