A review by heathercottledillon
Identical by Ellen Hopkins

4.0

This is one of my favorite Ellen Hopkins books. Whereas some of the others become repetitive and don't have a lot of memorable plot points, this is a fresh story with an interesting twist. Admittedly, I figured the twist out after about 50 pages due to some clues I'd overheard, but I still enjoyed it. Also, I like that Hopkins is looking at an extremely difficult subject from multiple angles this time as opposed to having one perspective like she usually does. The verse format still bugged me with this one, as it mostly reads like prose that just happens to be divided up in random places. There are a few parts that actually sound poetic or have some cool text design on the page, but a lot of it sounds just like a regular novel when you read it out loud. That distracts me and bothers me because it makes me feel like the novel-in-verse thing is just a gimmick. That said, I still like this book a lot and will definitely be recommending it to readers of gritty realistic fiction.