contemporary fiction

Book Review – One by Sarah Crossan

~ fionareads ~ Leave a comment

One

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Grace and Tippi. Tippi and Grace. Two sisters. Two hearts. Two dreams. Two lives. But one body.

Grace and Tippi are conjoined twins, joined at the waist, defying the odds of survival for sixteen years. They share everything, and they are everything to each other. They would never imagine being apart. For them, that would be the real tragedy.

But something is happening to them. Something they hoped would never happen. And Grace doesn’t want to admit it. Not even to Tippi.

How long can they hide from the truth—how long before they must face the most impossible choice of their lives?

One is a beautiful story about 16-year-old conjoined twins, Grace and Tippi, that really got me to thinking about a way of life completely different to anything I am used to. It is a story that reveals what it means to have a soul mate – albeit not in the traditional sense of the word. The entire novel is written in beautiful, flowing verse that had me in tears and it will remain one of the most poignant stories that I have read this year.

Tippi and Grace have been by each other’s side since birth. They are conjoined from the waist down, and have lived their entire lives sharing every single moment. Having always been home-schooled, they now must attend the local private high school as juniors and face the possibility this brings of staring, disgust, ridicule and judgement.

However, they grow to enjoy normal school life more than they expected, and even make some friends. They smoke, they drink, they go on a road trip – they experience the normal teenage life they have never had the freedom to live before. The normal complications of love, boys, privacy, family drama and angst are discovered through a totally new perspective. When Grace’s health worsens and becomes life-threatening, the twins have to decide whether they wish to be separated for the first time in their lives – the outcome of which will bring a series of devastating physical, emotional and psychological impacts.

I have never read a YA book like this – it was incredibly life-affirming and powerful. I felt that it was extremely clever for Sarah Crossan to write the twin’s tale in verse, because she showed that a story can be deeply moving and hard-hitting, with just a few words. The use of verse also made the novel incredibly easy and free-flowing to read – I finished it in one sitting; in a matter of hours and I found that the words just swept you up completely in their stark, simple poetry. This way of writing created a distinctive and magically profound voice that I feel would have been impossible to replicate with normal prose.

I also found it interesting that the author chose to pen the story through only Grace’s perspective, rather than both the twins. Tippi tended to control all situations and decisions so it was effective to read the story from the shyer and less-dominant twin’s viewpoint.

In summary, Crossan has achieved a powerful, heartfelt, and deeply moving novel that explores the true meaning of the word sisters. The enormous amount of research into conjoined twins was apparent and it read as factually accurate, but also emotionally hard-hitting. It was amazing to read something that perhaps I wouldn’t normally pick up. It is the first time I have read a novel written in verse, and I am glad to say it worked perfectly. I think the writing structure contributed greatly to the meaning and significance of the story. Grace and Tippi’s is an emotionally deep tale that is all at once lovely, shocking and utterly heartbreaking.

One is like nothing I have ever read before, and is a unique and poignant exploration of friendship, sisterhood, strength, soul-mates and love.

Book Review – The Long, Hot Summer by Kathleen MacMahon

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The Long, Hot SummerNine Lives. Four Generations. One Family. The MacEntees are no ordinary family.
Determined to be different from other people, they have carved out a place for themselves in Irish life by the sheer force of their personalities. But when a series of misfortunes befall them over the course of one long hot summer, even the MacEntees will struggle to make sense of who they are.
As media storms rage about them and secrets rise to the surface, Deirdre plans a family party for her 80th birthday-and with it one final, shocking surprise. 

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‘Relationships between men and women are about power. It’s all about the balance of power, and if you can’t get that right, then it’s a fight to the death.’

The Long, Hot Summer is an insightful, poignant and funny novel about the intricacies of real life. It covers everything from abortion, to adult relationships, mother-daughter complexities, theft, to politics, childhood, and how our experiences truly do shape us.

I loved MacMahon’s writing style – it is easy flowing and swallows you up whole. She has a real talent for writing descriptive prose, and it was so enjoyable to read, that I found I could not stop reading it. When I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about the characters, and their lives, and their individual stories. The author has a great ability to humanise even the coldest, and most unfeeling characters; I wanted to sit down and interview each of them!

The novel as a whole was incredibly insightful; MacMahon’s perceptions of the everyday are funny, poignant and sometimes, cynical. Each character experienced some sadness, and MacMahon’s interpretation of their experiences invoked a strong feeling of loneliness, yet there were other moments that were surprisingly life-affirming. I felt that she added unexpected insights into extremely normal topics, such as marriage, families, politics, etc. that I hadn’t really thought of before. I particularly loved that the strongest characters are revealed to be the most vulnerable.

The characterisations are great, and although none of them are really likeable, you find yourself warming to them. I loved Alma and Mick particularly – their stubbornness, but also their small, unspoken weaknesses that made them so real. The tragedy that strikes Alma changes her immensely and it was so intriguing to see how her character develops through this. Mick’s storyline was also great, and very, very funny – his mild kleptomania with the crippling consequences, and the fact that he is constantly compared to his brother, was amusing and revealing. I felt that perhaps he was the kindest character, and I liked him the most.

All the characters felt real, in some way, to me. They were very relatable in many different ways and had very humanistic flaws and weaknesses. There was no perfect protagonist, and I think this was why the story worked so exceptionally well. The novel split itself between the family, going from one point of view to another. I loved the structure of the story, written around all the different characters in the same family, all extremely unique, all on very different journeys, but somehow all also meeting up at one important moment in their lives.

I felt that this novel had great depth; it is a strong tale that weaves together the individual stories of many. It was compelling, moving, insightful and funny. The incredible character-based narratives are told with wit, and astute observation, and MacMahon has a great talent for putting normal relationships under the microscope and making warm, funny, and very, very truthful observations. The Long, Hot Summer is the perfect read for fans of family sagas, and Irish writers such as Marian Keyes and Maeve Binchy.

Thank you to Little, Brown for the opportunity to review this title!