Identical | 
| Author: Ellen Hopkins
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
Category: Book
List Price: $17.99
Buy Used: $10.58
You Save: $7.41 (41%)
New (38) Used (11) from $10.58
Rating:  37 reviews
Sales Rank: 1123
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 576
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.2 x 2
ISBN: 1416950052
EAN: 9781416950059
ASIN: 1416950052
Publication Date: August 26, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Do twins begin in the womb?
Or in a better place? 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 favorites -- 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 harboring 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?
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| Customer Reviews: Read 32 more reviews...
 Beware the Broken Mirror November 19, 2008
Karl R. Beach (Minneapolis)
NOTE WELL: The five stars are for the author's clearly-manifested writing ability and the reader's thespian talent . They are not an indication of the suitability of this book for a particular young adult (or mature one, for that matter).
Children and young adults are supposed to be exposed to "window books" and "mirror books" to help them become more insightful, better educated human beings. "Identical" is not the sort of window one would wish on another lightly. It goes without saying that incestuous, drug-dependent psychological confusion torments a percentage of families in these United States. If this is a "world expanding insight" one wants one's unaffected child to experience vicariously, "Identical" is a brutally-poetic vehicle for fostering it. For a specific child in a specific, unfortunate situation on the other hand, "Identical" might be a profoundly-catalytic mirror. In this case, one can only hope/pray that one or more competent, caring, trustworthy adults are available to help her (or him) begin sorting it out.
This said, Ellen Hopkins does a splendid job using terse, poetic phrases to convey her characters' confused emotions as they face their tangled, interconnected webs of recursive obsession and guilt that are cast in and around their fine home unadorned with family photos. Likewise, Laura Flanagan gives "Identical" a first-rate reading...highlighting the characters' thoughts and feelings in artfully-subtle ways.
This is not an easy book. For many, it will not be an appropriate book. But it is, undeniably, a well-crafted book. Buyer beware.
Challenging both in style and subject matter November 18, 2008
Teenreads.com (New York, NY)
Conventional wisdom holds that twins, especially identical twins, share a deeper connection to each other than siblings. This connection goes beyond mere empathy and verges on the metaphysical. Ellen Hopkins, in her latest teen novel, IDENTICAL, uses this idea as a starting point to explore a severely dysfunctional family whose twin daughters are in physical danger and emotional crisis.
Raeanne and Kaeleigh Gardella are the teenage daughters of two successful parents: dad Ray is a prominent judge and mom Kay is expected to win an upcoming senatorial election. The Gardella family is busy, with Kay mostly on the road campaigning and Ray working long hours. The girls have school to occupy them, but while Kaeleigh is involved in typical extracurricular activities, Raeanne spends most of her free time with her drug dealer, smoking pot, drinking and having sex. At home, both girls self-medicate, drinking from their father's bottles and emptying his pill bottles. It soon becomes apparent why: ever since a tragic car accident years ago, Ray has been sexually abusing Kaeleigh.
The twins respond to the abuse, as well as their father's alcoholism and their mother's emotional abandonment, in different ways. One rebels and tries to find power in relationships with men while numbing herself with drugs and alcohol; the other tries to avoid or discourage her father with overeating and emotional passivity while also numbing herself with substances and finally cutting herself to control her own body and the pain she is in. On the outside they seem like an ideal family as long as they all keep up the charade. But several changes in their lives make it impossible to pretend any longer that all is okay in their home.
Their mother is away more and more, and while the girls each begin new relationships with young men, they find out, when their grandparents contact them after many years, the events that so damaged their father. Soon, everything is spiraling out of control for both young ladies and they turn increasingly to drugs and sex, cutting and overeating. Finally, the tension is released with a frightening act and a surprising and astonishing realization. Friends new and old will be there to help pick up the pieces, but in the end, the twins have a steep and difficult road to recovery.
Hopkins's intense and graphic tale is told in non-rhyming verse. Kaeleigh and Raeanne take turns narrating the story with poems that often mirror each other, playing with repeated words and meaning. Some poems are visually styled, depicting the school bell, teardrops, broken hearts, keys and the bottle that symbolizes Ray Gardella. Despite these contrivances, the book is readable. It flows well and the back-and-forth between the girls' voices makes sense throughout, though by the end readers will see it is actually essential to the story.
IDENTICAL is challenging both in style and subject matter. It is literary yet written in a real, relatable (though sometimes cliched) voice. The subject matter, and Hopkins's handling of it, requires mature readership. The book is not without its flaws, and although the ending may be a tad far-fetched, the main point --- about the damage wrought by abuse and secrets --- is well-taken and important.
--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
Touching, but Tough November 17, 2008
BookBargainsandPreviews.com (New York)
This story was touching, but parts were very hard for me to read. While it is fiction, how many other young girls suffer abuse in silence. It was an eye opener for me.
Are We The Same November 13, 2008
CHayes (Bronx, NY)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Sharing bodies, minds, thoughts and feelings are strange most times, but when you run into the wonder twins in this story you will think twice the next time you come across a set of twins. This story gives the right details, descriptions and keeps you in grossed throughout the whole story. Kudoossssssss! this was a great read!
Well worth reading November 9, 2008
K. Kraus (Pleasant Prairie, WI USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
When I ordered this book from the Vine program, I didn't pay attention to the length. When it arrived, I was shocked at how thick it was and thought, "I'll never finish that." Then, when I opened it up, I thought it was a book of poems because of the author's unique free-verse style. I'm so glad I gave it a chance. Once I started it, I noticed that, while the words on the pages look like poems, they're really just thoughts and inner conversations of twin sisters Kaeleigh and Raeanne. It reads very fast because of the monologue/thoughts style. There are not a lot of excess, flowery descriptive words, which I loved.
The book alternates back and forth between Kaeleigh's and Raeanne's points of view. Kaeleigh is more the "good girl" sister while Raeanne acts out by smoking pot, drinking and having indiscriminate sex. But Kaeleigh has the awful secret of being the daughter her judge father sexually abuses. She copes by binging, cutting and borrowing her father's pills.
I was hooked right from the start by the easy style of writing. As I said, don't be fooled by the free verse look. I really admire the talent the author shows being able to arrange each little inner monologue into shapes like hearts or letters. And many times she does a page from each sister's point of view across from each other using a some of the same words in a mirror image technique. I don't know how Ellen Hopkins pulls this off, but it's really amazing.
The subject matter is very heavy and best for 16+ year-olds. I found myself hoping both daughters would get the help they needed before they self-destructed. And I wondered why the father would only abuse of the girls, but at the same time, it was obvious that both daughters were victims. Shortly before the end, there's a fascinating twist that pulls it all together and answers all the questions. Savvy readers may see it coming but it's definitely not obvious.
I highly recommend this book.
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