Possible Trigger Warnings: physical, emotional, and sexual abuse
At first the story reads like the usual suspense novel. Poppy admits she’s spent her entire life as "half a person". She can only be complete if her sister is part of her life. When we hear this opening line... “I wanted her back”. Lola has only been missing for two weeks. Poppy seems to be the only one who cares about finding her. I thought that really odd. Then we learn along the way, that Poppy has always had mixed feelings including bitterness for having to live as the shadow of her younger and more delicate twin sister. She says... “Her voice was the only one that mattered, but I’ll give her a piece of myself if it means I can bring her back.” Poppy has a secret PO Box that she waits for her sister to send her any correspondence at all...it remains empty. Poppy writes a letter to Lola each year. There are now 19 letters...one for each year of their lives that Lola has been gone. This begins as a story of two halves, but it ends with the story of one whole. The reader is let into a part of Poppy and Lola's lives as she writes each letter, each one revealing additional insight into a life that was rife with adolescent abuse, neglect, and shared trauma, Poppy learns that she can’t spend her whole life prioritizing the sister she’s always been told to protect. As the letters accumulate, the many contradictions of their twinned existence emerge. They have been both co-conspirators and adversaries since they were very young: “We weren’t the same, though no one could tell us apart. We were opposites. And that meant that everyone saw us as the same person, two bodies with joined names, one personality with two faces, a coil of sameness.” This story explores many components that I never realized are often neglected or never discussed. Everything from the realities of what it's like to even be a twin of any nationality, to what it means to be a twin that is gay and Asian in today's society. This is a YA book, but I don't think I know many young adults that would entirely be able to relate to it, and it's diffidently not for the light-hearted. Be aware also that there are some major possible triggers here. ( )