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| Image (c) Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
Publication Date: April 28th, 2015
Format: eARC from Netgalley
A girl takes over her twin sister's identity in this emotionally charged page-turner about the complicated bond between sisters.
Ella and Maddy Lawton are identical twins. Ella has spent her high school years living in popular Maddy's shadows, but she has never been envious of Maddy. In fact, she's chosen the quiet, safe confines of her sketchbook over the constant battle for attention that has defined Maddy's world.
When—after a heated argument—Maddy and Ella get into a tragic accident that leaves her sister dead, Ella wakes up in the hospital surrounded by loved ones who believe she is Maddy. Feeling responsible for Maddy's death and everyone's grief, Ella makes a split-second decision to pretend to be Maddy. Soon, Ella realizes that Maddy's life was full of secrets. Caught in a web of lies, Ella is faced with two options—confess her deception or live her sister's life.
I
love books that involve twins. I don't know what it is about this sort
of... twin thing that I happen to like a whole lot, but if you tell me
that a book is around two identical sisters... I'm immediately going to
be interested. This is a book that I've been hearing about a lot on
social media and, once I realized that it was available for review on
NetGalley, I decided to jump onto it- especially since it was around the
time that I got my new Kindle. So... that was extra exciting!
We
get to see a little bit of the twins, Ella and Maddy, before the
incident happens. It's quite clear, right away, that these two girls are
the opposites of each other. Maddy is popular and confident in herself-
especially with getting herself out of trouble. Ella may have, at one
point, wanted to be popular... but she found herself being happy just
being someone who's always under the radar. It's how she likes it.
But
things change when she gets in an accident with her sister in the car,
after picking Maddy up from a party, and... only one of them survives.
But all Ella was thinking about, through it all, was if her sister was
still okay... and, as she kept muttering her sister's name, the
authorities assume that she is Maddy herself and made it known that it
was Maddy that survived the crash, not Ella.
Even
after regaining a little bit of herself back, Ella decides to remain
being Maddy because she's convinced that they loved her twin more than
they loved her. After all, there were a lot of people in the hospital
just to make sure that Maddy's alright and comforting her for her loss.
But now Ella will get to know just how difficult it was to live as her
twin.
This
was a fairly interesting book. With Ella, I could already imagine how
her life could have been as a quiet artist as I feel like I lived a
similar life as hers- minus the twin sister, of course. To see the life
as Maddy, and how complicated things truly are, it was mind boggling. I
don't know if things like this happen for actual popular students in
high school or not, as I was never one myself, but it was definitely
mind boggling.
This
book would have definitely made it for me... if it wasn't for the
ending. The ending, to me, felt like it was rushed and that there wasn't
enough room to elaborate on it. I can't say much about it without
giving any spoilers about this book, but... I didn't like it. It was
lazy, in my opinion, and sort of... cheap?
I
enjoyed the rest of the book though. I enjoyed the book... before I
read the ending. Reading about the conflict in Ella's mind was...
interesting. Everything in the book fit well... but the end was like a
puzzle piece that was somehow placed in the box but, truly, it belongs
somewhere else.
If
you can by-pass the ending, then... go for it. It was definitely a good
light read and fairly interesting. Sadly, it didn't quite work out with
me, but it... might work for someone else. :D
(Originally posted on A Court of Ink and Paper, previously known as Cosying Up With Books)
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