Book of the Month: Verity by Colleen Hoover

Welcome to Book of the Month. The book of this month is Verity by Colleen Hoover. I cannot possibly continue with this post without acknowledging the HOLD Colleen Hoover has on the reading community. If this woman was Nigerian I would legit accuse her of using some sort of spiritual power to captivate people, because people LOVE her. She has a large cult following and you literally cannot walk any airport, train station, bookstore without seeing the array of her books. They are everywhere. This is only the second book of hers that I'm reading. I read It Ends With Us and I HAD thoughts but it was so emotionally intense that I decided against making it book of the month despite my feelings.

Anyway, Verity is about a writer, Lowen, on the verge of financial ruin when she accepts the opportunity of a lifetime. She has been hired by the husband of a much more famous writer, Verity Crawford, to complete the series Verity started before she became unable to continue due to an injury. The said husband, Jeremy Crawford, invites Lowen to their home to sort through Verity's notes and outlines and such, which is opportune, because Lowen has just been kicked out of her apartment. What Lowen did not expect to find in all the chaos was an unfinished autobiography by Verity. And that's where crap hits the fan. Somewhere along the line, Lowen's feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify. And as I said, crap hits the fan.

Friday Reflections

 1.) Adam Sandler accepted his award for the Mark Twain prize in comedy and the speech was very humble, grounded, and reflective of everything that contributed to his success.

2.) With another mass shooting this week, a gentle reminder that the thoughts and prayers of political leaders wont do. 

A Case for Shame ?

I have been reading a lot about shame, courage, vulnerability and the intersection of those three emotions. This, of course, means tackling Brene Brown’s work, which I absolutely LOVE (check out her special on Netflix; powerful stuff). That said, I’ve been struggling with some aspects of her work as it pertains to shame. She mostly argues that shame is a useless emotion, that shaming people never works, and feeling shame almost never leads to better behavior. I disagree with this a little (or maybe a lot?). What I seem to struggle with is she doesn’t quite account for accountability (excuse the pun) nor does she account for transitional justice.