Anna is everything her identical twin is not. Outgoing and athletic, she is the opposite of quiet introvert Jess. The same on the outside, yet so completely different inside--it's hard to believe the girls are sisters, let alone twins. But they are. And they tell each other everything.Or so Jess thought.
After Anna falls to her death while sneaking out her bedroom window, Jess's life begins to unravel. Everyone says it was an accident, but to Jess, that doesn't add up. Where was Anna going? Who was she meeting? And how long had Anna been lying to her?
Jess is compelled to learn everything she can about the sister she thought she knew. At first it's a way to stay busy and find closure . . . but Jess soon discovers that her twin kept a lot of secrets. And as she digs deeper, she learns that the answers she's looking for may be truths that no one wants her to uncover.
Because Anna wasn't the only one with secrets
The premise of this story is what got me to read it - a twin dies, the living twin is sure it wasn't the accident everyone thinks it was, she goes on a stealthy detective quest to find the answers to her sister's death. Do I think that the book played this out realistically? Yes and no. I can believe Jess wanting to get to the bottom of things, especially since she has come to the realization that there were huge secrets that her sister kept from her. What I don't understand is how easily her parents went along with the accident idea, especially since this was out of character behavior for their daughter. I don't know, maybe I've watched to many crime shows where parents are always determined to know the exact reasons behind what happened to their children. This was not the case in this book.
I also didn't like how there was lots of hints brought up about how Jess was the "messed-up" twin, that she went to therapy as a child, and lots of lines were given about how she couldn't stand to be touched. I'll give the main example my confusion about Jess's character: "they'd always remember the time when someone bumped against you in the grocery store and you screamed and screamed, or how, back in kindergarten, the teacher's aide had to come with you to the bathroom so you didn't spend thirty minutes washing your hands," (p. 14). This is just dropped into the story and is never discussed again. Jess appears to have some serious mental problems, but throughout the story, the closest the author comes to reinforcing this idea is to mention how Jess doesn't like to be touched - and yet she overcomes this fairly easily at one point in the story, with no negative repercussions or thoughts. I guess I'm just confused about what the point of bringing up Jess's past issues has to do with her character, if it doesn't seem like she has these problems currently.
Lastly, it bothered me how non-teen-like the majority of the characters are. It surprised me that Anna could end up keeping so much a secret from Jess, especially since they are twins and Jess is so oblivious, believing that they have no secrets, that she had absolutely no idea that her sister had this secret other life.
Aside from all that, I did not expect the twist at the end, so hats off to Brunskill. I enjoyed the slow build of Jess's investigation. I thought, aside from the weird health inconsistencies, that Jess's character felt very real - her grief, her determination, her fierce love for her sister. She was a good narrator and I enjoyed her perspective. I feel this would make a good mini-series or movie, because the tone of it is very melancholic, but has moments of beauty and suspense wrapped up in it. I could easily picture it in my head as I was reading. So, I gave it three out of five stars. It was a good read, I enjoyed my time with this book, and I don't regret picking it up. Just a little let down by the execution. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a suspenseful teen mystery.
No comments:
Post a Comment