‘Verity’ author finally reveals her verdict on film’s ending

Verity, the latest big-screen adaptation of one of Colleen Hoover's novels stars Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett.

The plot of the film, released on October 2, follows a writer named Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota) who moves in with the family of successful author Verity Crawford (Anne) in order to help finish a series of best-sellers.

There, Lowen discovers that Verity is secretly in a catatonic state, and has to go through her manuscripts to complete the novel. There, she discovers some disturbing secrets, and starts to question her own sanity.

During the process, Lowen begins an affair with Verity’s husband, Jeremy (Josh) while trying to separate reality from fiction.

Like the novel, the film ends with Lowen discovering a secret letter in which Verity states that the dark things she wrote in her manuscripts were all fiction as a way of coping with her grief.

Verity's letter also claims that Jeremy is evil and manipulating events to suit himself.

If that's the case, it means that Lowen just worked with Jeremy to kill an innocent woman, based on what was written in the manuscript.

She fears she may have started a relationship with a psychopath. There's also the possibility that the letter is the thing that's lying, and both the novel and film end with audiences filled with as much doubt as Lowen.

So, to clear things up a bit, what does Hoover herself think?

On the Open Book with Jenna podcast, the author of the novel, Hoover stated that when she wrote the book, she was confused herself as to what was the truth and what was the fiction in her own story.

But now, looking at it with the benefit of time and distance, she's decided that she's "Team Manuscript."

So, according to the author herself, Verity really was a twisted person and said what she said in the letter as a way of putting Jeremy in the frame.

However, Colleen Hoover did admit that viewing the movie version of Verity at least has her "feeling sorry for the character I thought was more evil in the book."