41 pages • 1 hour read
Colleen HooverVerity
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 14-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary
The next morning, Jeremy suggests putting a lock on the outside of Lowen’s door. She agrees. Lowen struggles to work for the rest of the day and decides to read another chapter of Verity’s manuscript.
So Be It Chapter 6 Summary
Six months after the twins’ birth, Verity still grapples with her jealousy. She contemplates running away, but she does not want to live without Jeremy. She has a dream one evening of Harper smothering Chastin and is overcome with heartache. Verity finally feels connected to one of the babies. Convinced that her dream is a premonition, Verity attempts to kill Harper by forcing her to choke on her own vomit. Jeremy enters and stops her before she is successful.
Chapter 15 Summary
Horrified, Lowen skims the remaining chapters of Verity’s manuscript. She sees that Verity excludes any mention of Harper in the future chapters and focuses only on Chastin. Lowen has dinner with Jeremy later that evening. They watch a meteor shower in the backyard. Lowen learns of Jeremy’s childhood growing up on a farm and about Verity’s estranged relationship with her religious family. As they continue watching meteors, Jeremy asks Lowen for her opinion over whether to place Crew in therapy. Lowen shares her own positive experiences with therapy following her sleepwalking incident at age 10. Jeremy and Lowen prepare to settle in for the night. He has installed the new lock on the outside of Lowen’s door to ease her fears over sleepwalking. Before leaving, Jeremy confesses that he has lied to Lowen about Verity having been a fan of Lowen’s work. He reveals that he is the one who suggested her name to the editors.
So Be It Chapter 9 Summary
Lowen reads another chapter of Verity’s manuscript, which picks up shortly after their move to Vermont. Verity senses that Jeremy is upset with her “for putting the girls in daycare without consulting him first” (201). Jeremy and Verity argue at the dinner table. He throws his plate at the wall and storms off. Verity confronts Jeremy, who shares his concerns over Verity’s obsession with Chastin and lack of regard and attention for Harper. Verity shares with Jeremy that Harper’s daycare teacher suggested testing Harper for autism. To appease Jeremy, she lies about calling a specialist for Harper and about being pregnant with their third child. Verity hatches a plan to get pregnant in the next week or to fake a miscarriage to cover up her deceit.
Chapter 16 Summary
A week passes and Lowen grows tired of the repetitive sex scenes featured in Verity’s manuscript. She submits the outline for the first book and waits for her advance to be processed. Suffering from writer’s block, Lowen decides to unwind and watch television. Jeremy soon joins her on the couch and begins asking Lowen questions to get to know her. She unveils that she will be turning 32 years old tomorrow. As Jeremy bakes a cake for Lowen’s birthday, they discuss “movies, music, our likes and dislikes” (214). Jeremy and Lowen finally kiss and begin to have sex. It is interrupted when Lowen looks up and sees Verity watching them from the top of the stairs. She tries to tell Jeremy what she saw, but he does not believe her. He rushes upstairs to check on Verity and finds her asleep in her bed. Lowen attempts to calm down and asks Jeremy to stay with her all night. He comforts her and reassures her that Verity is not faking her injuries.
Chapter 17 Summary
Lowen doubts what she saw the next morning. Jeremy tells her that he placed a lock on Verity’s door to use at night. Concerned for Crew’s safety, Lowen debates whether to tell Jeremy about Verity’s manuscript. She decides to hold off on deciding until she has finished reading it. She skips some chapters detailing Jeremy and Verity’s sex life and proceeds reading.
So Be It Chapter 13 Summary
Verity gets pregnant with Crew shortly after lying to Jeremy. Successful from her writing career, Verity hires a full-time nanny to care for the children. Verity details the moment they learned of Chastin’s death at a sleepover. She immediately questions Harper’s role in Chastin’s death. Convinced of Harper’s involvement, Verity regrets not staging an accident and killing Harper earlier.
Chapter 18 Summary
On her birthday, Lowen prepares dinner for Jeremy and Crew. Verity’s nurse leaves Verity downstairs in the living room watching television before the nurse departs for the evening. Lowen hears the sound go off the television and investigates. She finds it has been muted. Out of frustration, Lowen confronts Verity who does not react to Lowen’s attempts to agitate her.
Later, Lowen eats dinner with Crew and waits for Jeremy to return from putting Verity to bed. When they are alone, Lowen shares with Jeremy her opinion that Verity should be placed in a facility. Jeremy resists this suggestion and confesses his feelings for Lowen. They have passionate and intimate sex in Jeremy and Verity’s former bedroom. In ecstasy, Lowen bites the headboard in the same place Verity has left teeth marks.
Chapters 14-18 Analysis
Lowen gains more confidence throughout the novel because of her relationship with Jeremy. Once opening herself up to human connection, Lowen moves into action. When Jeremy confesses that he is a fan of her writing, Lowen smiles “because for the first time in my career, someone outside of my agent has given me validation” (200). She pushes through her former self-doubt to complete the first outline. Lowen no longer hides from her emotions but expresses them openly. She grows more and more protective over Crew and assumes a maternal role that contrasts greatly to Verity’s horrifying plans to destroy her children. Rather than continuing to avoid Verity whom she finds increasingly more menacing, Lowen confronts Verity. Although Verity does not react to her, Lowen feels accomplished in her confrontation of Verity because “the fact that I seemed to scare her has me convinced she’s in there. Somewhere. And now she knows I’m not afraid of her” (235).
Jeremy and Lowen solidify their connection physically. Their relationship progresses from emotional to physical with their first kiss, which Verity interrupts when Lowen sees her at the top of the stairs watching them. The relationship between Jeremy and Lowen is a triangle that includes the shadow figure of Verity whose presence threatens to disrupt the strong bond they have created. Even when Jeremy and Lowen consummate their relationship, they are unable to escape the symbols of Verity’s presence. They have sex in the same bed Jeremy and Verity once shared. Hoover portrays how Lowen acts as a kind of double or shadow figure to Verity, taking over Verity’s position as a writer, a mother figure to Crew, and as a lover to Jeremy. Operating from her innate maternal instincts to protect, Lowen contrasts the destructive inclinations of Verity who imagines how to kill Harper, her one remaining daughter. As she and Jeremy make love, Lowen sees Verity’s teeth marks on the headboard. From a place of empowerment and release, Lowen embodies the uninhibited nature of Verity as she “bites down on the wood in front of me. I can feel Verity’s teeth marks beneath mine” (242). However, Hoover notes how the teeth marks are “different” and “unaligned” with Lowen’s (242). This detail illustrates the stark contrast between these two characters. In this moment, Hoover chooses to mark a turning point in the novel as Lowen surpasses Verity’s mark by biting “harder into the wood as I come, determined to leave deeper marks than she ever did” (242). There is no turning back as Lowen has been irrevocably changed and now embodies the courage that she has written about in the first book of The Noble Virtues series.
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By Colleen Hoover
