The Secrets We Keep || Trisha Leaver || 294 pages -------------------------------------------------- Top 3 Genres: Young Adult / Contemporaty / Mystery
Synopsis: Ella and Maddy Lawton are identical twins. Ella has spent her high school years living in popular Maddy's shadows, but she has never been envious of Maddy. In fact, she's chosen the quiet, safe confines of her sketchbook over the constant battle for attention that has defined Maddy's world.
When—after a heated argument—Maddy and Ella get into a tragic accident that leaves her sister dead, Ella wakes up in the hospital surrounded by loved ones who believe she is Maddy. Feeling responsible for Maddy's death and everyone's grief, Ella makes a split-second decision to pretend to be Maddy. Soon, Ella realizes that Maddy's life was full of secrets. Caught in a web of lies, Ella is faced with two options—confess her deception or live her sister's life.
Finished: November 27th, 2016.
Progress: 49 / 50. 98% complete.
My Rating: ★★★☆☆. [3/5]
My Review: [Under the read more - NOT SPOILER FREE]
So. It took me a good 24 hours just to figure out how I wanted to rate this book, let alone write a review. So I have no idea how coherent this is going to be. Because I have some very mixed feelings that ultimately combine into feeling pretty disappointed.
My jumble of feelings started off with feeling annoyed at the main character Ella, and finding little to no redeeming factors in her. She's my personality type, but everything I *hate* about it - stand-offish, cold, unfriendly, won't even try to figure out how to act around people, apathetic at best about everything including her own best friend and career path, doesn't want included in things but then angry later about not being included in things.. I, yeah. I found it very hard finding sympathy for her when shit hit the fan.
These feelings progressed when the plot twist of the whole book revealed itself to be ENTIRELY based off of a simple lack of communication. These twin girls are driving home in shitty icy weather, they're arguing in the car, Ella jerks the wheel to pull to the side to kick her sister out of the car, the ice makes her lose control and hit a tree. Hitting a tree kills her sister and lands herself in the hospital, and due to several (very forced feeling) factors leading up to this, everyone thought it was Ella who was killed and the sister who lives. She wakes up and sees all these people (SO MANY people - a boyfriend, her family, a hallway full of friends) who are happy to see her sister alive with no word on herself, and decides "oh, these people aren't for me, they're for my sister, no one misses me, but these people all love my sister, how can I tell them I'm me and not her, okay I'll live her life to keep from hurting them." Of course, this completely disregards the biggest VERY OBVIOUS argument - her sister is DEAD and in the morgue of course no one would still be around for her - let alone any of the others that you'd come up with after thinking about this very serious decision for any longer than a minute. So she just decides not to correct everyone's assumption about who she is. She just goes with it. (She also feels as if she's the one who directly killed her sister, so it's partially guilt that fuels the decision too. So it makes it make a little more sense. BUT STILL.)
And the rest of the book is about her dealing with trying to do this, and doing all the things she "didn't consider having to do" when she decided to live as her sister. Such as being with her sister's boyfriend and being convincingly in love with him. And dealing with the mess of popularity her sister was in the middle of, including all the "friends" and the drama and the constant watching your back. And picking up her sister's personality traits and hobbies and abandoning her own. And being able to put together fashionable outfits and apply makeup and do hairstyles with no experience. And doing all her sister's classes - and as horribly and inattentively as she did. And playing field hockey. You know. ALL the things deciding to abandon yourself and become someone else MEANS. It's NOT as simple as "oh I just don't want to hurt these people" didn't you really THINK about this at all?
This, all of this, wouldn't be so bad, if she decided fuck it I'm doing this and completely OWNED becoming her sister and paid more attention and stopped still doing things she as Ella was known for doing (like drawing, and going to her own locker cause she was walking on auto pilot (man it's lucky she knew her sister's locker combination), and having certain private spots to go to during school), OR if she went "I really can't do this" sooner than she finally did and stopped trying to do such a shitty acting job. I seriously don't even understand how more people didn't notice sooner, cause FUCK she was bad at what she was trying to do.
I mean. Eventually she did give in and decide to come clean to everybody. And for the most part, the way she did it was fine. BUT wouldn't it have made more sense and be more respectful to tell her parents FIRST and not LAST after everyone at school?? I mean, her plan was to tell her sister's boyfriend and a girl her sister SERIOUSLY fucked over first as a way of apology, but, idgaf, you're dropping a bomb that the dead sister is alive and the alive one is dead - you tell your parents first. And she's awfully lucky that nobody that mattered was upset that she lied - they were all understanding and quietly forgiving and I'm actually kind of glad for that? But idk. I feel like she got let off WAY too smoothly and like the epilogue was just.. too unrealistic. That kind of trauma caused from that kind of loss and that reaction to it doesn't just 'go away' that easily.
And another thing I realized I have an issue with - part of Ella's whole internal turmoil is caused by feeling like she's the one who killed her sister. She lost her temper, she yanked the wheel, she brought the car offroad and caused it to lose control. So yeah, it makes sense that she wouldn't buy it at all when everyone is trying to tell her "it's not your fault" like YEAH she really has a good reason to feel like it is. So while she was coming clean to everyone about who she really is, why didn't she mention it - to ANYBODY, at ALL - *why* she feels like it's her fault? WHY didn't she ever talk about that? Am I supposed to believe that she just "forgets" or "accepts" it? Bullshit. After that whole mess of a book, I don't believe she just "came to terms" with it for a SECOND.
There are reasons, though, why this book got more than one star. It got a second because I felt like Ella suffered enough for her bullshit attitude and stupid ill-made decision, and a third because of a few things - her best friend Josh, how much he reminded me of my boyfriend, how he was the first to figure out what was going on, was there for her when she burst into tears after coming clean to him, and THEN let out his anger and did not hesitate to call her out for her crap and make it clear that if she's going to live as her sister, she CANNOT keep going to him. That she finally did decide to come clean and stop carrying on with such a huge lie, and made a true friend in the process. How grateful it made me feel personally for not needing to hide anything from my loved ones and that I can be myself (for the most part) with no issues. The residual 'fucked up' feeling it successfully rubbed off on me from Ella's suffering, which left me feeling not good enough, like she did, and was probably the only thing I could truly relate to. The fact that I realized I might be a bit too harsh, because there are a couple things here I just do not understand - what it feels like to have a sister, let alone be an identical twin, and how it feels to lose a sibling, let alone your twin.
But then I remember everything I already complained about - PLUS, what happened to Josh's girlfriend?? Hm? What was even going on there? He was cold and distant to her and complained about her the entire book. Did he even LIKE her? I really hope he broke up with her BEFORE deciding to go to Ella after she decides she's just going to be Ella. *cough* anyway. I remember all those things. And that's why this book gets three stars, and even *that* might be a bit of a stretch.
But yeah. It's strong, and powerful, and sends a VERY strong message, that's for sure. It definitely got to me. It hooked me in and kept me curious, *despite* being based 100% on a lack of communication. So ultimately, I don't feel like it was a waste of time to read it. But I feel like the execution and the MC's ultimate reasoning could have been a LOT stronger and done a lot better, and I can't really forgive any of the other little plot holes that went unaddressed and unexplained. So I don't believe I'll be recommending this to anybody else. If you feel you'd like to read this anyway, then I won't really stop you, because hey, *I* don't regret reading it. But I will say your time is probably better spent reading something else. You'll know all you need to know about the book already anyway if you've made it through this whole review.
