Review Detail

Identical does not pull any punches. This novel in verse is decently long, and in its pages, just about every “issue” that can possibly be covered in an “issue book” is dealt with. Rape, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, student/teacher relationships, schoolyard bullying, self-harm, BDSM (of dubious consent), sexual abuse of a child by a parent, child pornography, violence, mental health, sex sex sex—the list goes on and on. Normally, I would have called this overkill, said Hopkins was packing too many problems into one book, setting herself up for failure.

In this case, though, I don’t think it was overkill. Maybe, just maybe, this book isn’t entirely uh…realistic. Maybe, just maybe, the picture painted will be too dark for some readers. It’s not that the content isn’t real, but that there’s so much of it, and it might be, for some readers, like sinking in a sea of bad things and drowning before the Coast Guard comes. Personally, I didn’t drown, and the end result was a very satisfying, intense read.

Twins Kaeleigh and Raeanne are mirror images of the other, but they couldn’t be more different. Kaeleigh is like their mother, much to her father’s perverted delight. Kaeleigh is a victim of sexual abuse, she binge eats, she cuts herself, and (inexplicably, considering everything she’s gone through) she’s in love with her best friend Ian. Raeanne is like their father, and because of that, he doesn’t give her the time of day. Raeanne spends her days having sex, smoking pot, and nursing all the hate and bitterness her twin sister seems to be lacking.

Separately, the two girls are broken, incomplete. Together, they have the power to change their lives for the better. But that can only happen if they break down the walls that rose up after their father chose to molest Kaeleigh and not Raeanne (because Raeanne is jealous, something even she admits is sick and disgusting).

So, not going to lie, Identical was not surprising at all. Maybe, perhaps, because earlier this year I read two books that, while completely different, each have exactly half of the shocking conclusion to this novel. Obviously I can’t say which two books, but it was easy for me to see the patterns and know where Hopkins was headed. That predictability, however, didn’t really affect how I felt about the book as a whole. Identical was kind of like a grotesque car accident on the side of the road: you know you shouldn’t look, but as you drive past, you can’t tear your eyes away. Ellen Hopkins had me hooked on this book.

As I expected after my great experience with Burned, Hopkins’ poetry was strong, evocative, and worked well. The story switched between Kaeleigh and Raeanne’s perspectives, and the dual-narrative worked well to highlight the disparities between the two girls, all while showing how alike they truly were. I may have had a few complaints, but the nature of the conclusion was such that any problems I spoke about were invalidated and, I suppose, proved to look purposeful on the author’s part, which I’m sure they were.

All in all, Identical is a strongly written and engrossing book. It’s very dark (maybe too dark), and there’s a lot going on in this book. But the situation was presented in a way that made this impossible to set aside, because the desire to see some good come into the sisters’ lives was so, so pressing. As this is my second book by Ellen Hopkins, I’m confident in saying that I’m a fan of her work.