Identical by Ellen Hopkins

I've read my second Ellen Hopkins book...Identical. I highly, highly recommend you read an Ellen Hopkins book. But reader beware, they are raw, gritty, raunchy and very hardcore. She pulls absolutely no punches in her stories. Another warning about her books...there is no silver lining. If you are looking for a happy ending in your books, I recommend you find another author. These stories end realistically rather than a "happily-ever-after" kind of ending.

The gist of this story is two twins telling of their lives after a horrible car accident caused by their alcoholic father. The father is a judge and their mother is running for the state senate and they are very very dysfunctional. This is the story of how the twins join together to survive the dysfunction of their lives. It was hard to read at times, but I felt like the difficult images were integral to the deepness of the storyline.

Identical teen twins Kaeleigh and Raeanne share a picture-perfect California life that is rank with dark, dangerous secrets under its surface. Their mother, who is running for Congress, leaves them at home with their father, a district court judge who is addicted to liquor and OxyContin. Daddy regularly molests Kaeleigh, using her as a stand-in for his absentee wife, and controls every aspect of her life. Raeanne sees every detail and reacts to her father's favoritism by acting out sexually and getting high on pot whenever possible. Written in free verse from alternating viewpoints, Identical tells the twins' story in intimate and often-graphic detail. Hopkins packs in multiple issues including eating disorders, drug abuse, date rape, alcoholism, sexual abuse, and self-mutilation as she examines a family that "puts the dys in dysfunction." The tension builds slowly and subtly, erupting in a shattering climax of psychological disintegration and breakthrough that reveals the truth about the twins and their father's own childhood secrets.