Verify (Verify, #1)

by Joelle Charbonneau

“Wow! Shades of Fahrenheit 451 and Orwell’s 1984. Painfully real and urgent. Read this book.” —Michael Grant, New York Times bestselling author of the Gone series

Bestselling author Joelle Charbonneau’s eerily timely, high-stakes page-turner is destined to start important conversations at this particular moment in our history.

Meri Beckley lives in a world without lies. When she looks at the peaceful Chicago streets, she feels pride in the era of unprecedented hope and prosperity over which the governor presides.

But when Meri’s mother is killed, Meri suddenly has questions that no one else seems to be asking. And when she tries to uncover her mother’s state of mind in her last weeks, she finds herself drawn into a secret world with a history she didn’t know existed.

Suddenly, Meri is faced with a choice between accepting the “truth” or embracing a world the government doesn’t want anyone to see—a world where words have the power to change the course of a country and where the wrong ones can get Meri killed.

• ISBN10: 006280362X
• ISBN13: 9780062803627
• Publish Date: 31 October 2019 (first published 24 September 2019)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 22 August 2023
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperTeen
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[mrs_mander_reads]

I liked this take on government control / resistance. The concept of removing words from the vernacular as a way to influence bias and culture is a new one, but is super interesting. I wanted a little more from the ending - I know there's a second one, but there wasn't a lot there to encourage me to read the second one.

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight .

I genuinely thought that this was a contemporary book about a girl dealing with the loss of her mother until about 30% in. (I don't read synopses before I start a book, so sue me