Key Insights

Verity & Jeremy’s Total Number of Kids

While Verity and her husband Jeremy Crawford (Josh Hartnett) welcomed three children in the book—son Crew and their late twin daughters Chastin and Harper—the couple have two kids in the movie.

Content creators on BookTok have revealed that Chastin is the one who’s removed from the movie and that Crew is the twin of his deceased sister Harper, which may surprise fans given Chastin’s storyline in the book.

In the autobiography manuscript found by Lowen Ashleigh, Verity writes about being jealous of the love and attention Jeremy gave Chastin and Harper during her pregnancy and after they were born. As the manuscript continues, Verity describes bonding with Chastin but not Harper and blaming Harper when Chastin dies from a fatal reaction to peanuts.

Six months after Chastin dies, Harper drowns—with the manuscript noting Verity took Harper and Crew out in a canoe, tipped the boat to kill Harper and saved only Crew.

So, while Chastin was a big part of the book, Hoover defends not including her in the movie.

“I remember them asking us to remove one of the children because it felt different due to the time allotted on film, and it gave the story a different vibe that was almost too dark and unrealistic,” she told Variety. “I was nervous about that, but when I read the next version of the script I was like, oh, that’s the best change we could have made.”