IDENTICAL
Realistic fiction
By Ellen Hopkins
Reviewed by Shilo Fuller
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
On the surface they seem like the perfect family. Sixteen-year-old Kaeleigh and Reanne are identical twins. their father is a respected judge and their mother, a high-profile politician. After the accident everything changed. Mom and Daddy drifted apart. Daddy started drinking and using Oxy to numb the pain and Mom buried herself in work and is never home. With Mom rarely in the picture Daddy turns to nine-year-old Kaeleigh for the kind of love a father should never take from his daughter. Meanwhile, Reanne watched, jealous that he didn’t love her in the same way, ignorant to the fact that it wasn’t right.
Reanne drowns her life in drugs and sex while Kaeleigh’s into pruging and cutting, and internally fighting with herself about what her father is doing to her. Both girls use alcohol and Oxy when they can manage to take it from their father without him knowing. Will Kaeleigh ever realize what really happened the night of the accident? Will she ever escape the torture of her father’s abuse?
Ellen hopkins is a genius when it comes to writing about the struggles of teen girls in the wrong direction in life. Written in verse, IDENTICAL tells a disturbingly realistic story of girls being abused and how they deal with their issues. I wouldn’t recomend this book to younger teens due to some detailed descriptions but it would be good for older teens to read and understand what life as an abused girl is like.
