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Product Details
Margaret K. McElderry Books, August 2008
Hardcover, 576 pages
ISBN-10: 1416950052
ISBN-13: 9781416950059
Grades: 9 and up
Book Club Pick
Get the reading group guideNational Bestseller
Awards and Nominations
- ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
- NYPL "Books for the Teen Age"
- Pacific Northwest Young Reader's Choice Award
- Pacific Northwest Young Reader's Choice Award Master List
- YALSA Teens Top Ten (TTT)
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Description
"Perfect on the outside, but behind the Normal Rockwell facades, each holds its secrets. Dark, untellable. Practically unbelievable." -- IDENTICAL
Kaeleigh and Raeanne are 16-year-old identical twins, the daughters of a district court judge father and politician mother running for US Congress. Everything on the surface seems fine, but underneath run very deep and damaging secrets. What really happened when the girls were 7 years old in that car accident that Daddy caused? And why is Mom never home, always running far away to pursue some new dream? Raeanne goes after painkillers, drugs, alcohol, and sex to dull her pain and anger. Kaeleigh always tries so hard to be the good girl -- her father's perfect little flower. But when the girls were 9, Daddy started to turn to his beloved Kaeleigh in ways a father never should and has been sexually abusing her for years. For Raeanne, she needs to numb the pain of not being Daddy's favorite; for Kaeleigh, she wants to do everything she can to feel something normal, even if it means cutting herself and vomiting after every binge.
How Kaeleigh and Raeanne figure out just what it means to be whole again when their entire world has been torn to shreads is the guts and heart of this powerful, disturbing, and utterly remarkable book.
Kaeleigh and Raeanne are 16-year-old identical twins, the daughters of a district court judge father and politician mother running for US Congress. Everything on the surface seems fine, but underneath run very deep and damaging secrets. What really happened when the girls were 7 years old in that car accident that Daddy caused? And why is Mom never home, always running far away to pursue some new dream? Raeanne goes after painkillers, drugs, alcohol, and sex to dull her pain and anger. Kaeleigh always tries so hard to be the good girl -- her father's perfect little flower. But when the girls were 9, Daddy started to turn to his beloved Kaeleigh in ways a father never should and has been sexually abusing her for years. For Raeanne, she needs to numb the pain of not being Daddy's favorite; for Kaeleigh, she wants to do everything she can to feel something normal, even if it means cutting herself and vomiting after every binge.
How Kaeleigh and Raeanne figure out just what it means to be whole again when their entire world has been torn to shreads is the guts and heart of this powerful, disturbing, and utterly remarkable book.
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1. Meet Bestselling Author Ellen Hopkins02:5627805651001 -
2. Ellen Hopkins: Identical03:1427796550001 -
3. Get to Know Bestselling Author Ellen Hopkins00:2927794445001
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How did you come to write this book?
Over the years, several friends have shared stories of childhood sexual abuse. None felt able to write them, so I wanted to give them, and other young men and women with similar stories, a voice. Statistically, one in five women and one in seven men suffer some form of sexual abuse. We, as a society, need to find ways to lessen those statistics.
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