Justine's Thoughts: Identical by Ellen Hopkins

Identical

By Ellen Hopkins

Pages:

565

Book Description:

Kaeleigh and Raeanne are identical down to the dimple. As daughters of a district-court judge father and a politician mother, they are an all-American family -- on the surface. Behind the facade each sister has her own dark secret, and that’s where their differences begin.

For Kaeleigh, she’s the misplaced focus of Daddy’s love, intended for a mother whose presence on the campaign trail means absence at home. All that Raeanne sees is Daddy playing a game of favourites -- and she is losing. If she has to lose, she will do it on her own terms, so she chooses drugs, alcohol, and sex.

Secrets like the ones the twins are harbouring are not meant to be kept -- from each other or anyone else. Pretty soon it’s obvious that neither sister can handle it alone, and one sister must step up to save the other, but the question is -- who?

A quote:

I stay, and for one I stay
long enough for the ice dam
to melt, warm into an easy
flow, burgeoning into
a river
of need. My pulse picks up
speed and I lift my eyes to his,
have to look away or I might
go blind at the blaze
raging
there.

Any thoughts:

When I first saw this book waiting for me at the library, I thought, “Whoa, it’s so thick! This will take me a while to read.” And when I opened it, all I saw were verses. You see, I’ve never read a book that contained poems throughout the whole thing so I was a bit uneasy. But that feeling quickly went away as soon as I became hooked!

Expect the unexpected for this one. The twist ending caught me by surprise and I had to flip a few pages back. I definitely didn’t see it coming, but it had me intrigued because I wanted answers to my curious questions.

From the beginning, I’ve always thought that the plot is sad and heavy with all the issues a teenager could possibly go through: drugs, alcohol, sex, abuse, eating disorders, metal illness, promiscuity, and so on. There were a lot of these and at certain times, it was difficult to continue reading. Sometimes it even disturbed me. But Ellen Hopkins’s writing kept me engaged in the story that it was so tough to stop. And since it’s written in verse, I didn’t know where to place the bookmark! So I ended up continuing, which is why it seemed like a quick read to me.

All I would have to say is that this book is real heavy. Be mindful of the issues that this book is based on because it surely made me cringe at least once. But I absolutely love Ellen Hopkins’s style, and I really look forward to read her other works.