One Book Review

One

Written by: Sarah Crossan
Number of pages: 388

Average Rating: 4.15/5 stars
My Rating: 4/5 stars

Published September 15, 2015
Read in May 2016


Summary according to goodreads

Grace and Tippi. Tippi and Grace. Two sisters. Two hearts. Two dreams. Two lives. But one body.

Grace and Tippi are conjoined twins, joined at the waist, defying the odds of survival for sixteen years. They share everything, and they are everything to each other. They would never imagine being apart. For them, that would be the real tragedy. 

But something is happening to them. Something they hoped would never happen. And Grace doesn't want to admit it. Not even to Tippi. 

How long can they hide from the truth - how long before they must face the most impossible choice of their lives?


My Thoughts

What originally drew me towards this novel was its format of being written in verse, and then the plot centring around conjoined twins. I have never read anything like this topic before, and did not know what to expect. What unfolded was a very emotional story written from one of the twin's perspectives. 

Before anything else this story is about the bond of sisters, and how each would give their life for the other. I only have a brother who is two years younger than I am, but know that I will never have a bond with anyone as I do with him. From the very first pages I could feel how much Grace loved Tippi and her younger sister Dragon, and how her family was her entire world. I felt that this aspect added a lot to the story and was a great way to have the reader connect to the characters from the beginning. 

The characters in this novel, including the minor ones, were very real. Everyone had their ups and downs, made mistakes, and dealt with them realistically. It was a very sad novel, even from the beginning because it depicts how these girls were treated - showing readers how cruel people can be. I also really appreciated how this novel showed how the twin's being conjoined affected their parents, their younger sister, and the other people around them. Money was very tight, emotions were very high, but they were always there for each other. This was an amazing contemporary story that felt true from beginning to end. 

The only reason that I did not give this novel five stars was because I felt that this story would have been better told conventionally in formatted sentences and paragraphs. Ideally I would have loved to see each chapter take one of the twin's perspectives, in order to get both sides of the story and better feel the girl's personalities. 

Before reading this novel I had not thought much about this condition, except for one special I had seen on TLC. Opening both my eyes and my heart, I can tell you that this is a very powerful novel. Although it may seem simple, there are a lot of underlying elements that add to these twin's lives. Overall I was very impressed with this novel and hope to read more from both the author and this subject matter.