Often, a secondary poem streams off to the right of the page, dropping small bombs of intense meaning which underscore the larger poem. Each page is a poem with the title forming part of the first line. The way the novel is written cannot help but capture your attention also.

Throughout their traumatic adventures, the girls never communicate with each other and are unable to understand the dark fears that grip their alcoholic fatheruntil a confrontation at the end in which it all becomes clear.

Both girls are haunted by eating disorders, deep loneliness, a yearning for love, and unanswerable questions. Raeanne, disgusted with her twin sisters passive acceptance of an intolerable situation, actively pursues life on her own termsbut what she chooses is a life of drugs, alcohol, and sex. Kaeleigh is a lot like her absentee mother and becomes the unwilling object of her daddys misplaced love. The twins harbor terrible secretssecrets that they keep from each other and everyone else. At the heart of the story, there is a mystery in the lives of the identical twin protagonists, Kaeleigh and Raeanne. The characters are unsparing and unflinching in their plainspoken truths about the lie of their seemingly perfect lives and the evil behind the doors of their clean suburban home with the perfectly manicured lawn. Although I did not intend to read a novel all morning, I could not put this one down. If you listen to this story be prepared and maybe have someone you can talk with if the subjects in this story cause you any distress.Ellen Hopkinss powerful storytelling riveted my attention from the start. Not sure if this is a spoiler but I wanted to give a trigger warning to anyone who has dealt with sexual abuse, substance abuse, self harm or bulimia/eating disorders. She did a good job at using different tones and inflections for the twins, but there was something about the way she spoke that I didn't particularly care for but it was not enough to make me stop listening. There was a definite twist that I didn't see coming, and I'm usually decent at at least getting in the ballpark of what twist in stories are. The ending gave me hope but this is very hard when you think about the fact there are children who do have to deal with this. It does have possible triggers for a variety of situations, but most of the author's stories seem to be that way. The overall story was good but the subject matter was also a little hard at time.

Identical ellen hopkins series