u/rosalialilyy

Unpopular opinion: Villains are just people who’ve had enough.
Obviously it’s not that simple, but in the broad sense of this topic I think there’s some truth to it, if I think of some villain origin storys.

And this obviously doesn’t excuse the bad things villains do.

My life is really crazy right now and stressful.
Which is why I have no time to write and when I have time, then I’m trying to write but everything that comes to paper is shitty gibberish.
I have ideas, I have topics which I want to research and write about, I have books I want to read to get better at writing, but all I ever do when I finally have free time is open my iPad and watching Netflix or scrolling through social media.
My job has nothing to do with my real interests, I mean it does in a way, but I realized that it’s not my dream job like I thought before starting it.
The problem is, it’s an apprenticeship with one year left, so I’m only ‘free’ again in the sense of going in the direction I really want, in late 2027.
I suspect that this also contributes to my ill writing currently and to my non existent motivation towards reading, writing and doing everything I should and want to do.
So I numb myself with digital things, which only makes things worse.
Tbh I procrastinate everything, even important tasks I should be doing like writing stuff for an exchange which I’ll do in 2027. I need to write applications and renew my passport, but I just do nothing.
Work stresses me out a lot and it feels like the only thing I’m doing is working and going to sleep too late and then the cycle repeats.

Do you have any tips on how to start writing/reading/doing literally anything productive again and staying focused especially in stressful situations?

I‘m slowly getting back into writing and I find myself sometimes having the scene in my mind but not being able to find the words to describe it really good.
I would like to learn more about show don’t tell, because right now I sometimes tell things which I could show better.
I don’t know if that makes any sense haha.

Tbh I watched S6 and then as the show moved on to S7 I fell asleep, Netflix kept running and then I woke up and there they were.
Dan and idk her name at this show, then this Quinn and this guy at the beach and I was like huh? What’s going on, where am I? What have I missed? Everything apparently.
I was too lazy to rewatch everything so I just kept going.
This wasn’t the brightest decision, because my confusion got even bigger.
I have to admit, I stopped watching the show now and switched back to my beloved TVD.
But for real, what’s going on with Dan and Rachel?

I can’t express how much I love human switch off Caroline and Stefan! Haha.

I don’t know, but I don’t really like it haha. I‘ll still keep watching because I want to see how the show ends, but other than Brooke, Haley and Nathan the show feels so strange right now idk.
They should have ended the show at season 6.

How did you like it?

Which genres do you love to read and which ones do you love to write? (my mistake)

As I am currently starting my new project just for fun, with the breathtaking name “project x”, because nobody knows where the story goes yet, neither me nor my characters, I noticed how I am writing in a completely different genre then I prefer to read.
Whenever I enter a bookstore, I always walk past the romance/ya/na section and straight to thriller/horror/psychology and other stuff like that.
I love to read about stuff that lets me question reality, gives me goosebumps and surprises me with plottwists I wouldn’t have seen coming.

Yesterday I started writing again, mainly to cope with my current reality and because there’s this one character in me which keeps on resurfacing, but I have never finished or started writing her story for real and this character lives in a world full of romance, drama, daydreaming and just completely na/ya.

So I got to the conclusion that I love to read thrillers and other stuff and hate reading romance books, but somehow I love writing about romance and drama.
Lol.

How about you?

Fyi they are my coworkers. We were good friends at the beginning (sep 2025), then I had to go to school (nov 25 - feb 26), then I came back and I felt like they had become really distant.
They stopped initiating hangouts and declined mine when I asked. I kept asking if something’s wrong and they kept saying yes everything’s okay, even though it clearly wasn’t.
This kept going. I kept feeling lonelier and more isolated the more time went by.
(We live here at our workplace. A few hours away from our hometowns and most of us are from far away. The building we live in is from our workplace and all of our coworkers live here).
And all of our other colleagues in our department which got really close with them kept getting more distant with me.
I felt more isolated at work and in my own flat alone.
May had been my worst month yet, I struggled with severe depression due to feeling lonelier by the day, felt like a burden at work and it all just kept getting heavier and heavier for me.
Then after my mental breakdown we finally talked and they basically told me that I got too negative for them and that’s why they distanced themselves from me and that I have to accept it when they don’t want to hangout with me or only the two of them or with other people who aren’t me.
I cried during this conversation and none of them asked me how I really am and then I left.
Fyi I never burdened them with my problems or talked to them about how I felt. I just also got more quiet and distant, when I got the feeling that something’s off.
So they just felt a negative vibe or whatever but I never talked to them about my problems because they never even asked how I am.
Then after the conversation I tried to accept it and yes it’s still hard, because I have to work with them (I’m an apprentice which is why I have to stay here like them until fall 2027 otherwise I think I would have quit already), and all of the other people which I don’t think like me. I hear about hangouts, to which I’m never invited. They keep whispering and laughing. Never include me.
But whenever something happens in my life they get curious and want to know everything, which I keep getting better at not telling.
The past week they invited me again and to two out of three things I said yes, but I never know where I stand with them.
Oh and last time we went out I felt really out of place and no one really talked to me or included me, then one of those “friends” went home with a guy who I had an ons with a while ago and who was a complete asshole to me.
Tomorrow we have a work trip and we are in the same room but not because they wanted to, they would have left me with whoever, but another coworker insisted that I am also in there room, for which I am thankful for, but I don’t feel well thinking about the fact that I’ll be in the same room with people which I think secretly hate me.
I just don’t know what I’m doing so wrong and what’s so wrong with me that they don’t even want me somewhere near them. If I wouldn’t be their coworker they wouldn’t even talk to me.
Do they hate me?
I keep trying to talk to them normally and to go out of my comfort zone, but it keeps getting more exhausting and I am lost and confused and lonely.

Fyi they are my coworkers. We were good friends at the beginning (sep 2025), then I had to go to school (nov 25 - feb 26), then I came back and I felt like they had become really distant.
They stopped initiating hangouts and declined mine when I asked. I kept asking if something’s wrong and they kept saying yes everything’s okay, even though it clearly wasn’t.
This kept going. I kept feeling lonelier and more isolated the more time went by.
(We live here at our workplace. A few hours away from our hometowns and most of us are from far away. The building we live in is from our workplace and all of our coworkers live here).
And all of our other colleagues in our department which got really close with them kept getting more distant with me.
I felt more isolated at work and in my own flat alone.
May had been my worst month yet, I struggled with severe depression due to feeling lonelier by the day, felt like a burden at work and it all just kept getting heavier and heavier for me.
Then after my mental breakdown we finally talked and they basically told me that I got too negative for them and that’s why they distanced themselves from me and that I have to accept it when they don’t want to hangout with me or only the two of them or with other people who aren’t me.
I cried during this conversation and none of them asked me how I really am and then I left.
Fyi I never burdened them with my problems or talked to them about how I felt. I just also got more quiet and distant, when I got the feeling that something’s off.
So they just felt a negative vibe or whatever but I never talked to them about my problems because they never even asked how I am.
Then after the conversation I tried to accept it and yes it’s still hard, because I have to work with them (I’m an apprentice which is why I have to stay here like them until fall 2027 otherwise I think I would have quit already), and all of the other people which I don’t think like me. I hear about hangouts, to which I’m never invited. They keep whispering and laughing. Never include me.
But whenever something happens in my life they get curious and want to know everything, which I keep getting better at not telling.
The past week they invited me again and to two out of three things I said yes, but I never know where I stand with them.
Oh and last time we went out I felt really out of place and no one really talked to me or included me, then one of those “friends” went home with a guy who I had an ons with a while ago and who was a complete asshole to me.
Tomorrow we have a work trip and we are in the same room but not because they wanted to, they would have left me with whoever, but another coworker insisted that I am also in there room, for which I am thankful for, but I don’t feel well thinking about the fact that I’ll be in the same room with people which I think secretly hate me.
I just don’t know what I’m doing so wrong and what’s so wrong with me that they don’t even want me somewhere near them. If I wouldn’t be their coworker they wouldn’t even talk to me.
Do they hate me?
I keep trying to talk to them normally and to go out of my comfort zone, but it keeps getting more exhausting and I am lost and confused and lonely.

Tbh I kind of expected the series to end after High School graduation, but then I realized that there are 4 more seasons?!
I’m not sure if I like S5 yet, but I’m only the first episode in.

Is it worth it to keep watching or does the series flop in later seasons? Like it unfortunately sometimes happens.

Edit: Jamie is so sweet omg.

Edit 2: As a TVD fan, I love that a few of those actors appear in OTH 👀

Ich liebe Psychothriller, aber aktuell ist meine Sammlung, trotzdem noch eher klein.🙇🏻‍♀️

Deshalb würde ich gerne meinen Horizont erweitern, verschiedene Autoren ausprobieren und ja vielleicht auch Bücher lesen, auf die ich von selbst nie gekommen wäre.

Unerwartete Plottwists, Mindfucks, Geschichten, die mit der Wahrnehmung und Realität spielen, was auch immer.

Gerne her damit.🫆

>!Vertraue niemandem. Nicht einmal dir selbst.!<

Freue mich auf eure Empfehlungen👀

I didn’t want to read this book for the longest time. Bought it, forgot about it, found it again, wanted to sell it, but then I decided to give it a chance especially for the movie.

Let me tell you, it was a rollercoaster for me.
I didn’t think it was especially thrilling and scary at times but I still enjoyed it and read it in two days.
I loved the manuscript scenes and how it showed us a side of the antagonist.

It reminded me of The Housemaid, but considering this book was published earlier it was the other way around, but I have to admit that Freida’s book fascinated me more (I would like to use the german idiom “in den Bann ziehen” here, but idk if I used the right translation lol. If you liked Verity and don’t know The Housemaid yet, then please read it, because this one is really thrilling and full of twists and turns!)

I told myself “If the plottwist turns out to make the husband the antagonist and Verity the innocent lamb which just developed surviving strategies then I’ll eat my hat”.
>!If you got the reference then good for you,!< >!if not, then I’m sorry.!<
Well, it kinda turned out like it didn’t it or did it?
What’s the truth?
Then I thought about the possibility of Lowen being an unreliable narrator and given her obsessive comparison with Verity I really considered it.
I started to question Lowen’s perception.
>!HUGE missed opportunity. It would have made so much more sense.!<

Also big red flag: Not using condoms. Girl be more responsible.
But not the point of the book.

Then the plottwist came and I assumed it, but I didn’t assume the letter, which turned everything upside down.

So who was the real antagonist all along?
>!I believe Verity, but Jeremy could have also been a real good antagonist. The biggest plottwist would’ve still been Lowen.!<

We need a book from his perspective.
>!Because hello??? Why didn’t we get to know more about the fact that he knew all along and given the fact how easily he could kill? And he had so many characteristics which could have made the perfect antagonist in disguise.!<

And that’s all I had to say.
Sorry for my chaotic review. I nearly never write any, but I wanted to write one for this book.
There have been a little too many sex scenes for my liking, because I didn’t expect that many given I knew it was a thriller.

How did you like the book?
Do you believe the manuscript or the letter?
Will you watch the movie?

Edit:
Just realized I didn’t even answer my own question.
>!Given how Crew can be at times and how easily(as we got to know) Jeremy believed the manuscript, I kind of believe it more than the letter, but at the other hand we don’t know if Crew’s behavior might only stem from all the trauma he had to endure at such a young age or from that and an traumatic mother.!<

Just finished Verity and I got really curious about this writing method.
I have never heard of this before.

Have you ever tried it?

❗️Könnte Spoiler enthalten❗️

Obwohl ich mich vor CoHo Büchern sträube, besitze ich doch zwei und eins davon ist Verity.

(Ja, die Autorin an sich ist sehr kontrovers und ich habe auch nicht vor weitere Bücher von ihr zu kaufen.)

Eigentlich wollte ich es verkaufen, doch als ich mitbekam, dass das Buch verfilmt wurde und bald in den Kinos startet, dachte ich mir, ach egal ich geb dem Buch eine Chance, denn den Film werde ich mir vielleicht ansehen.
Noch dazu hörte ich, dass es anscheinend sehr spannend sein sollte, und ich liebe Thriller.

Entschuldigt meine etwas durchwachsene, nicht so professionelle Rezension. Ich schreibe selten welche.

Stand bis zur Hälfte des Buches:
Es liest sich sehr flüssig.
Etwas, das ich sehr an Thrillern liebe, wurde auch hier eingebaut, nämlich man bekommt auch einen Einblick in den Kopf des vermeintlichen Antagonisten.
Verity (2020) erinnert mich jedoch stellenweise schon sehr an The Housemaid (2022) beziehungsweise eigentlich ist es ja umgekehrt, aber ich las The Housemaid zuerst.
Liegt vielleicht einfach am Plotpoint: junge Frau zieht zu einem Ehepaar ins Haus, mit sexy Ehemann und verrückter Ehefrau und komischen Kind.
Von der Umsetzung und der Storyline her fand ich The Housemaid aber bei weitem besser.
Alles in allem finde ich es bis jetzt gut.

Nach Beenden des Buchs, einige Gedanken aus meinem Lesetagebuch:
-Bei einigen Szenen dachte ich mir wirklich nur wtf.
-Lowen vergleicht sich obsessiv mit Verity.
-Das Buch ist nicht schlecht aber auch kein Thriller, der mich komplett umgehauen hat.
-Der Plottwist war eigentlich recht vorhersehbar, und ich hoffte davor, dass es sich vielleicht doch in eine andere (unerwartetere) Richtung entwickeln würde.
-Es gibt mMn sehr (zu) viele, oft auch unnötige, Sexszenen.

Die erste Hälfte baute die Geschichte eh recht gut auf, es war auch spannend, aber der Plottwist war meh und der Epilog eher langweilig.

Mein Fazit:
Kann man lesen, aber wenn man es nicht macht, hat man auch nichts verpasst.
Wer spicy Bücher mit Spannung liebt: Ja.
Wer einen richtigen Thriller erwartet, der die Liebesgeschichte eher als Nebenstory behandelt: Nein.

Habt ihr das Buch gelesen und wie fandet ihr es?

“I hate my body”
Said one of my earliest diary entries at the age of fourteen or fifteen.
This hatred kept being one of the most consistent things in my life and is still going strong at the age of twenty five.
I’ve described countless occasions where I felt disgusted by myself when I gained weight and ‘loved’ myself again when I lost the weight.
With fever kilograms I gained a little bit of self worth, with more kilograms I lost it again and wanted to bury myself under my blanket until it dropped again, because I felt ashamed.
Binge eating never left me.
Hating myself afterwards and still buying the unhealthy food again for my next binge even if I told myself I can control myself this time keeps happening.

I’m at the feeling ashamed and wanting to bury myself under my blankets point of my life again.

I should know better by now, I know.
But I don’t.
My thoughts about food, my weight, not enough exercise, binges, fatigue, fat, gaining weight, losing weight, clothing sizes, what should I eat next, I’ll eat this today and start eating healthy tomorrow, never stop.
Tomorrow never comes.
It comes, but I repeat the same cycle again and again.

This isn’t supposed to be a self deprecating post, maybe someone can relate.
This is just something I’ve struggled with for what feels like my whole life and it’s slowly eating me alive.
It also feeds my insecurities about myself, makes me more anxious by the day.

Maybe one day I’ll look back and can say with confidence and a smile “This episode was long, exhausting and bad, but I overcame it. Finally”.

I used to write a lot.
I was never really good at it, but I loved it and as every reader I dreamed of becoming an author.
As I got older I got more ashamed of my writing and one day stopped even though I never even told anyone about my love for writing.

Now I’m 25 and the urge to write is getting bigger again, but I don’t know where to start. I still write a lot (diary and random thoughts), but just whatever crosses my mind and I abandoned every story I’ve ever started.
How do you get back into fictional writing again?

Edit: Thank you so much for all your advice🫶🏼

Ich lese gerade ein paar abfotografierte Seiten meines aktuellen Buchs auf meinem Handy, weshalb mir diese Frage einfiel.

Macht das eigentlich noch wer?
Seiten abfotografieren, um unterwegs weiterlesen zu können?
Sobald ich die Seite fertig gelesen habe, lösche ich sie natürlich wieder.
Für mich persönlich ist das einfach sehr praktisch, weil ich dann echt immer und überall weiterlesen kann.

Ich unterstreiche Stellen, die ich interessant finde.

Ich scheue mich nicht vor Eselsohren, falls ich mein Lesezeichen mal wieder nicht finde. (Ich weiß, No-Go).

Ich knicke den Buchrücken und mir sind Leserillen (oder wie Booktok das nennt) egal, denn ich will mein Buch einfach komfortabel lesen können.
Zumindest bei Büchern, die ich ganz sicher nicht mehr verkaufen werde.

Ich las im Sommer auch auf der Luftmatratze im Pool, und das ein oder andere Buch wurd ein bisschen nass.

Und ich kaufe viel lieber SecondHand Bücher als neue.
Erstens weil sie günstiger sind, und zweitens weil ich Bücher, die bereits gelesen aussehen viel lieber mag.

Was macht ihr so mit euren Büchern und beim Lesen? 📚

Edit: Hört ihr mitten im Kapitel auf zu lesen, also sobald ihr die Seite fertig habt oder echt erst am Ende des Kapitels?

Ich höre mittendrin auf.