From my first glance at the cover, the first thought that came into my head was: this is going to be a story about friendship. And then the thought reminded me of Jacqueline Wilson’s Double Act! Who knows how many times I must have read that book?!
Once I started flipping through the pages, I realised that the book wasn’t going to be anything like Double Act. The book is written in free verse, something so unusual that the idea of it overwhelmed me. It was probably a very difficult task for Sarah to beak the sentences up in the right places!
The story is about two conjoined twins, Grace and Tippi (named after two of Hitchcock’s biggest stars: Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren). They are joined at the hip, have two heads, two hearts,two sets of lungs and kidneys, four arms and a pair of fully functioning legs.
They now have to face the world by going to school for the first time at sixteen years of age. Their family are broke and their father is unemployed and a serious alcoholic. Home schooling is no longer possible for them.
Will they make friends at the new school? Will they ever fall in love? But what they don’t know is that a heartbreaking decision lies ahead of them, something that could rip them apart and change their lives forever.
This story is so heart warming, heartbreaking and aims right for the tear ducts! One of the biggest reasons why I would give this book fives stars, maybe even six if that were possible, is because of the very new style of writing.
I felt that the free verses slowed the reading down a little, and made me pause every so often, and I felt it achieved the effect of drawing the reader in deeper and deeper into the plot.
I also think that people who are rather slow readers, will find it easier to blaze through this book. The book is pretty big but that is only because many pages are half empty because of the verses. There are some people at my school who don’t pick up books because they’re worried that they’re too long and I felt that this book contradicted that idea. I finished this book in three hours!
- Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
