1 Goal Down…

Tanning on a lounge chair in my backyard, I finally finished my summer reading goal. My third book was Twins by Marcy Dermansky, a novel about – you guessed it – twins. Physically beautiful, psychologically damaged, identical twins, to be exact.

A positive about this book is that it’s not your typical teenage novel chock-full of predictability and happy endings. What kept me interested in Twins was the uncertainty of it all.

The storyline, however, struck me as a bit odd. These twins lived wealthy, privileged lives with parents that were pretty much absent through their entire childhood. Horrible, miserable occurences continued to cause destruction in these girls’ lives, and somehow they managed to survive with only slight and temporary psychological damage. At first, one of the twins seemed completely crazy; it was hard for me to believe that a person could have such strange thoughts and still be considered sane. Then, like magic, a change of events transformed both of these girls into completely different people. The girls lived an impossibly strange high school career, and even just writing about it now, I am confused and awestruck at how much can happen in four years of a fictional character’s life.

In all honesty, the ending was probably my favorite part of the story. No, it is not because I was finally done with the book (OK, fine, that is partially why). But the conclusion to a novel can oftentimes make or break the entire storyline. A bad ending can destroy the whole story altogether. Fortunately for Twins, the last paragraph, in my opinion, actually benefited the novel. I know this sounds drastic, but had it ended another way, I probably would have lost all respect for the writer.

Overall, Twins does not make my list of favorites, but I did make it through the whole thing, which has to say something. So if you’re ever in the mood to read a strangely interesting, psychologically twisted novel about teenage twins, I’d suggest you take a gander at this book.