Identical by Ellen Hopkins

Title: Identical

Author: Ellen Hopkins

Publish Date: August 2008

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

Pages: 576pp

ISBN: 1416950052

Classification: Fiction

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Age Range: 12 and up

Amazon: $12.95

Annotation: Kaeleigh and Raeanne are identical twins who appear to live a picture-perfect life, but underneath this façade lays painful secrets and abusive behaviors.

Summary: Written in verse, Ellen Hopkin’s captures the tragic story of two twins, Kaeleigh and Raeanne, who appear to have the picture perfect California family with their mother running for Congress and their father being a district court judge. But things are not as they appear as their father is addicted to OxyContin and duly an alcoholic who regularly molests Kaeleigh and controls her life. This sets Raeanne into a rage as she views her father’s actions as favoritism, so she acts out by being promiscuous and getting high. Both girls, extremely different in their own right, suffer in silence, living behind the facade of a perfect, all-American family. The concluding chapters reveal a huge secret, or rather disorder for Kaeleigh.

Evaluation: An emotional and powerful story written in verse with intimate and graphic details, in which are hard to read due to the nature of the story that is packed with multiple issues such as: abandonment, drugs, incest, date rape, self-mutilation, and dysfunctional families. Not a comfortable read, but one that provides vast insights, imagination, and a surprise twist that reveals a psychological element that will have the reader thinking long after the story has ended.

Bibliotherapeutic Usefulness:

• It’s ok to ask for help. 
• You don’t have to keep the person who is abusing you safe, no matter who it is.
  Sometimes the people that are suppose to protect us end up hurting us the most.
  You don't have the bear a horrible secret, it's better to share with someone you trust.
  It's ok to ask for help.
  Drugs, self-mutilation, and other form of self physical abuse will not help you.  

Reason this book was chosen: Known for writing in verse, and dealing with difficult topics—drugs, sex, abuse, etc.-- I have always wanted to read an Ellen Hopkins novel. Identical was chosen (mainly) because it was required, but also because of the vast array of subjects Hopkins incorporates in this one novel—maternal abandonment, drugs, casual sex, a tragic past, cutting, bulimia, and incest.

Similar Titles:

Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott

Thirteen Reason’s Why by Jay Asher

Author Website: Click HERE 
Awards:  
ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, 2003  
Banned Books Week adopts Hopkin's anti-censorship poem as manifesto