Publication Date: 8/26/2008
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
Pages: 565
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased - goHastings.com
Goodreads Summary:
In the latest hard-hitting YA novel by the New York Times bestselling author, 16-year-old identical twin girls must come to terms with their abusive father.
Kaeleigh and Raeanne are 16-year-old identical twins, the daughters of a district court judge father and politician mother running for Congress. Everything on the surface of their lives seems Norman Rockwell perfect, but underneath run deep and damaging secrets.
Kaeleigh is the good girl-her father's perfect flower, something she has tried so hard to be since she was nine and he started sexually abusing her. She cuts herself and vomits after every binge, desperate to feel something normal. Raeanne uses painkillers, drugs, alcohol, and sex to numb the pain of not being Daddy's favorite. Both girls must figure out how to become whole, but how can they when their world has been torn to shreds?
Writing in her characteristic narrative poetry style, Ellen Hopkins shows once again how well she knows today's teens and the issues that matter to them.
Kaeleigh and Raeanne are 16-year-old identical twins, the daughters of a district court judge father and politician mother running for Congress. Everything on the surface of their lives seems Norman Rockwell perfect, but underneath run deep and damaging secrets.
Kaeleigh is the good girl-her father's perfect flower, something she has tried so hard to be since she was nine and he started sexually abusing her. She cuts herself and vomits after every binge, desperate to feel something normal. Raeanne uses painkillers, drugs, alcohol, and sex to numb the pain of not being Daddy's favorite. Both girls must figure out how to become whole, but how can they when their world has been torn to shreds?
Writing in her characteristic narrative poetry style, Ellen Hopkins shows once again how well she knows today's teens and the issues that matter to them.
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Once again, Ellen Hopkins did an amazing job of writing a story in poetic verse that you can genuinely connect with. Kaeleigh and Raeanne are truly amazing characters. We hear the same events told in different voices from different points of view. Kaeleigh is the good girl while Raeanne has a problem not being Daddy's favorite little girl. They are twin sisters who do not understand the pain the other is going through. What it takes for these girls to become whole is extraordinary.
Throughout this novel I in no way expected the ending that came. I understand the ending and I honestly believe that in situations of severe sexual abuse this can occur, but wow...what a twist! I can never seem to put down any of Hopkins' books to do anything else. Once I pick one up I have to read it through until the end. There is so much heartfelt emotion contained within these novels and Hopkins develops a way for you to connect with the characters without all the words a traditional novel would use. The verses each connect us with the characters and all there story to be told in a way that is so different than usual.
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