Identical by Ellen Hopkins

From Goodreads, 

"Do twins begin in the womb?
Or in a better place?

Kaeleigh and Raeanne are identical down to the dimple. As daughters of a district-court judge father and a politician mother, they are an all-American family—on the surface. Behind the facade each sister has her own dark secret, and that's where their differences begin.

For Kaeleigh, she's the misplaced focus of Daddy's love, intended for a mother whose presence on the campaign trail means absence at home. All that Raeanne sees is Daddy playing a game of favorites—and she is losing. If she has to lose, she will do it on her own terms, so she chooses drugs, alcohol, and sex.

Secrets like the ones the twins are harboring are not meant to be kept—from each other or anyone else. Pretty soon it's obvious that neither sister can handle it alone, and one sister must step up to save the other, but the question is—who?"

Goodreads - Identical

This post is bittersweet since it is the final Friday of April which means poetry month is officially over.  Throughout the year I stay on the lookout for poetry-based books.  I am finding it harder and harder to find poetry/prose books and keep finding myself drawn to Hopkins's books because I know they fit the mold.  This being said, I really want to branch out and find some different authors who focus on poetry.  

Identical is the story of two identical twins, Raeanne and Kaeleigh.  The story rotates between their respective perspectives.  Raeanne is fearless and daring.  She wants all the guys, especially if they are older.  She wants pot and drugs.  She wants love from her father.  Kaeleigh is the opposite.  She is perfectly collected and makes good grades in school.  She doesn't get into trouble.  She wants more of her mother's love and a lot less of her father's.  The two stories are told parallel to each other with very minimal interaction between the two girls until the shocking end of the book. 

Spoiler alerts ahead!!!

I never truly felt connected with Kaeleigh or Raeanne in this book.  The topic of Kaeleigh being sexually abused by her father was rough, no matter which angle you looked at it from.  I felt like I favored Raeanne more than Kaeleigh.  She seemed more confident and sure of herself than Kaeleigh did, for good reason of course.  But I was also frustrated that Raeanne wasn't helping Kaeleigh to stop the abuse.  I was frustrated with all the family members and adults in this book for not stepping in and stopping what was happening.  But as the book continued I realized that one of the two girls would end up attempting or committing suicide.  I did NOT expect Raeanne to have been killed in the car accident years prior.  And I did NOT expect Kaeleigh to be suffering from a disassociative identity disorder.  After Raeanne was killed in the car wreck, Kaeleigh soon started being abused by their father.  Over time Kaeleigh developed another personality, more specifically her dead sister.  I feel that it was almost a coping mechanism, which is mentioned in the book that this usually happens due to childhood trauma or abuse.  I expected a twist, but I didn't expect the entire book to have been told by one person with two personalities.

While I was shocked with the ending, I was displeased with this book.  All of Ellen Hopkins's books are running together and seem to be exactly the same.  To put it simply, I am getting very bored with Ellen Hopkins's writing style.  I feel like she had the big hit with the Crank series and thought she had really found something.  But the books following the hit series lacked depth and details.  I never feel truly connected with any of the characters in the book and there is a complete lack of details.  I feel like she is pushing the bigger message so hard that we miss the details that truly make a story.  And I feel like she has continued to write in the poetry/prose style so avoid having to include details.  I feel like we could save a ton of paper if we stopped breaking sentences up and putting them into funky shapes and patterns.  The copy I read was 565 pages and I feel that it could have easily been condensed to 200 pages if we got rid of the sentence breaks and writing style.  

I think people who really enjoy the writing style of the Crank series will enjoy this as well.  It does have triggers that people need to be aware of before reading.  I am getting exhausted with Hopkins's writing style.  Every book feels exactly the same and sounds exactly the same and has the same underlying themes.  The lack of details makes it difficult for me to separate one book from another.  I give this 2 stars.