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Verity audiobook vs book: which should you choose?

The book has two strands, and one of them is a manuscript the heroine finds. The recording has two narrators.

Read vs Listen·Verdict last reviewed 23 October 2026·5 min read

Short answer: for the Verity audiobook vs book choice, we say read it on Kindle (65% confidence, leaning). The audiobook is read by Vanessa Johansson and Amy Landon and runs 8 hrs 10 mins, unabridged. Neither Audible nor the publisher says which narrator reads which strand. A collector’s edition adds a bonus chapter in print. The story alternates between two timelines, which favours print, and nothing confirmed favours audio.

Confidence 65%, which puts it in the leaning band. Bands run from close call at 50 to 64, through leaning at 65 to 79 and clear at 80 to 94, up to clear cut at 95 and above.

What this book actually is

Verity is a psychological thriller by Colleen Hoover, first self-published on Kindle on 7 December 2018 and republished by Grand Central in the US in 2021. In the UK it is a Sphere paperback of 368 pages. Waterstones lists it as the Pageturner Book of the Year at the 2023 British Book Awards. It is a stand-alone novel.

Lowen Ashleigh, a struggling writer, is hired to finish a bestselling series for an injured author, Verity Crawford, and finds an unfinished autobiography in the author's home. The book alternates between Lowen's present-day story and passages from that manuscript. The Amazon MGM Studios film, directed by Michael Showalter with Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett, opened in the US and the UK on 2 October 2026.

The case for reading it

The advantage of print here is control. Verity runs on two accounts set side by side, and print lets you go back over a passage of the manuscript at your own speed, or check which strand you are in, without searching back through the audio. Readers on one Q&A site make exactly this point about pacing and rereading, though it is an unverified forum rather than a review.

There is also a collector's edition with a bonus chapter, reported as exclusive to that print edition. No audio listing we checked mentions it. And not every listener gets on with the recording: some Audible reviewers call the narration distracting, and one found a character's voice irritating.

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The case for listening to it

At 8 hours 10 minutes, Verity is a short listen, about 5 hours 27 minutes at one and a half times speed, and its structure suits audio: one present-day storyline moves forward, and the manuscript appears in pieces within it.

The recording uses two narrators, and listener write-ups describe the change of voice as what separates the present-day strand from the manuscript. In print you can look back to check which strand you are in; on audio the change of voice tells you at the moment the strand changes. For a book whose tension depends on two competing accounts, hearing them in two voices is a real advantage.

The audiobook in detail

Audible Studios released the unabridged recording on 7 May 2019. It runs 8 hours 10 minutes on Audible UK, Audible US and Apple Books, and library catalogue records agree. A Brilliance Audio MP3-CD and a Playaway edition also exist.

Vanessa Johansson is an AudioFile Earphones Award winner with about sixty audiobooks to her name, according to her publisher's page. Amy Landon is a classically trained actress with more than 300 titles and an Earphones Award of her own. A separate fifteen-minute summary and analysis read by David Sterling also turns up in searches. It is a different product, not an abridgement of the novel.

Who should ignore this verdict

Audio suits anyone short on time or who likes to take a book in one pass. At 8 hours 10 minutes Verity is a short listen, about 5 hours 27 minutes at one and a half times speed, and its structure suits audio: one present-day storyline moves forward, and the manuscript appears in pieces within it.

Audio also suits anyone who likes to hear two accounts in two different voices. The recording uses two narrators, Vanessa Johansson and Amy Landon, and listener write-ups describe the change of voice as what separates the present-day strand from the manuscript. Neither Audible nor the publisher says which narrator reads which strand, and some Audible reviewers find the narration distracting.

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