~*~::{Reading Blog #48: Identical Finale. SPOILERS}::~*~

OH my freaking god.  Today I finished reading Identical by Ellen Hopkins and all I can say about it is that I was speechless for about 10 minutes.  Sarah and Amanda will be my honest witnesses when I say this, when I read the huge twist at the end, I went nuts and I was like, shaking.  I didn’t believe that a book could ever give me feelings of such…I don’t even know…it gave the “OH MY GOD” factor a whole new level.  So without giving away too much, there are these twin girls that look exactly alike and everyone things they are so perfect since they come from a political family.  But in retrospect, the girls are far from perfect.  One of them binges and purges all food when she feels sad and cuts herself with her razor when she’s in the shower to “feel” anything.  The other sister is addicted to drugs and sex.  Kind of exact opposites, actually. So basically as this book goes on, you learn more about the family and their dysfunction as a family.  The mother is never home as she is active in the government (and eventually wins the election as governor of California) and the father drinks more and more to fill the hole that the mother has left in his heart.  He turns to the daughter for sex and abuse.  This causes her to eat more and to cut herself more.  The other sister falls in love with her history teacher and tries to get him in the sack, which doesn’t work.  At the end of the book you learn that the twins are actually one person with schizophrenia and they actually believe that they are separate people.  This twist made me blow my top and say really loudly in class (and I’m surprised if Mr. Cheng didn’t hear me) “HOLY SHIT!!”.  It made Manda and Sarah laugh, but I was really embarrassed.  Good book!  Time to start Crank tomorrow…

~*~::{Reading Blog #47: Identical}::~*~

This week I started and I’m about a third of the way through with “Identical” by Ellen Hopkins.  So far, this book I think is the most confusing of the bunch (mostly because the main characters names are Kaeleigh and Raeanne and they’re kinda confusing at the beginning), but this is turning out to be very conflicting and climactic.  Kaeleigh is pretty much “Mommy and Daddy’s perfect little angel” and does whatever she’s told.  Like the teacher’s pet.  However, there’s a darkside to this angel.  She goes home and eats until she can’t eat anymore.  This binging leads to depression and she begins cutting herself when she’s in the shower…and she likes it.  Raeanne on the other hand, is the opposite of the angel.  She is dating a guy she doesn’t even like, Mick, and does pot to get away from all the pain.  They have loveless sex on an almost daily basis and she does whatever she feels like, pissing off who she wants to piss off, bitching out who she wants to bitch out.  (this is a complete contradiction to the title, which is called “Identical”…which is the opposite of who the sisters actually are).  If this wasn’t enough, the mother is running for office in California and she is never home.  She is emotionally dead and doesn’t treat the daughters or husband with any love at all.  The father is a drunk and drinks to get rid of the pain of not having a loving wife.  He, however, takes joy in getting the love from another source…(i.e. Kaeleigh).  This book has everything.  Sibling and family rivalry, incest/rape, drugs, alcohol, sex, eating disorders…basically, a teenager’s nightmare.  I love this book! 

 

Ellen, you’re truly amazing!!

~*~::{Reading Blog #46: Finishing Impulse}::~*~

**BEWARE OF SPOILERS**

 

This week, I finished Impulse.  And I gotta say…oh…my….freaking…god.  Sarah told me this book was going to make me cry, but I didn’t think she was serious.  I have read a bunch of books before that I thought were sad, but the end of this book was really just…unexpected and did make me tear up a bit (so what?  I’m man enough to admit it…I almost cried).  I was on about page 300 yesterday evening, and it got to the point that I couldn’t stop reading.  I read for probably a solid 4 hours reading and I finished today during English after nonstop reading (all the way to page 666…creepy…)  Nonetheless.  The last half of the book I think really developed the characters 10 times better than they were in the first half.  Through the point of view of Conner, Vanessa, and Tony, you learn about their dark past and their secrets and you see more into why they are the way they are.  Conner’s mother expects the best of him and doesn’t love him.  She only wants him to do well and she wants to keep her “perfect reputation” from being spoiled…Vanessa’s mother was abusive and had bipolar disorder and beat her and treated her and her brother terribly…and Tony, we learn that he was raped at a very young age by her mother’s loser boyfriends and other people.  The book ends with one of the saddest endings I’ve ever read in a book (since Burned and Wicked…).  I didn’t see it coming.  It was the last few pages and I started to think “Huh…seems like everything’s gonna be okay…” and in the last couple pages, a huge twist happened and my breath was taken away.  I was like “Oh my God…I can’t believe that just happened…what?  NO!!”  And yeah.  I’m starting to read Identical now, so yeah. 

 

And since Ellen Hopkins is now lookin’ at my blog, I’d like to welcome her and say a friendly “Hello!!”  Then I'd give her a hug, ‘cause I like hugs.  Haha.  

~*~::{Reading Blog #45: Impulse}::~*~

Today I’m going to do my blog on the book “Impulse” also by Ellen Hopkins.  Now, this is the second book that I’ve read by her…and yet again, I am completely smitten with this book.  I mean, the describing words in this book are just…wow.  It really does paint a picture in my head.  I know a lot of people say that about a lot of things, but this book really does that for me just so.  This book is different in the way that it is told.  It is told in the perspective of 3 young people, Vanessa, Tony, and Conner.  Each one of them has tried to commit suicide; Vanessa by slitting her wrists, Tony by overdose, and Conner by shooting himself in the heart.  All three of them come from completely different backgrounds and tell the story on why they decided to make such a negative decision and what it’s like for them in the hospital.  So far, I’m only about 90 pages into this story, but it’s already turning into one of those suspenseful books that I just can’t put down and that I just wanna keep reading ‘til it’s over…and then when it’s over, I wanna read some more!  To me, this book is very eye opening.  I mean, you always see the depressed kids and they always talk about wanting to kill themselves and such, but you never know exactly why or what they might be feeling until you look at the world through their eyes.  Most of us just look at them and say they don’t appreciate life, but in this book it gives you the perspective that life doesn’t appreciate them.  It’s very clever how Miss Hopkins makes this story.  My hat is tipped to you, Miss Hopkins on creating another dark classic that will forever live on my bookshelf!!