Identical

I am currently reading the book Identical by Ellen Hopkins. This book is about two identical twins Kaeleigh and Raeanne, and is written from each of their perspectives. Their father is a famous judge, and their mother is running for office, and is constantly on the rode campaigning, and doesn’t seem to care about them. Their father one the other hand is the opposite. He is very controlling especially of Kaeleigh. He also happens to not be a very great person, not only is he controlling of Kaeleigh, but he also sexually abuses her. Kaeleigh being just like her mother who isn’t around, seems to attract her father in very unnatural ways. Raeanne on the other hand is almost jealous of the attention that Kaeleigh is given, which promotes her bad behavior.

This book like the rest of her books is written in poems, which vary very much depending on the text and what is going on in the book. Some are structured very simply and read more like any other novel than poems. Other are more complicated and creative and express the text, and what the characters are thinking. For example on page is about finding a long lost love, and the poems are shaped like hearts (page 198). Or another page is full of questions and the poem is shaped like a questions mark (page 290).

While reading, one big thing I noticed about the set up of the poems is that right before the character narrator switches to the next character, and the first poem of the new character, the poem is always set up the same way. There are around three to five small paragraphs to the side, and after each paragraph one word to the opposite side. If you just read the single words on the right they actually make a complete sentence, which is usually a very poetic summary of the last section, or poem. The first poem of the next section has the same thing as the last poem of the section before. These poems can have different meanings for the different context there in though.

One example of one of these sentences is “Death near calls to me from the shadows” (316 and 317). In the first poem it is in (Kaeleigh’s) she is very upset and is talking about how hurt she is and how the only way to escape is death. She even tries to cut herself. In Raeanne’s poem she finds the cut on Kaeleigh, still relating to how she is talking about death.

In conclusion I think that this shows how the set up of this poem really brings out the more poetic side of the book, and the deeper meanings of the poems. Hopkins does a great job explaining what she means through her poems and their structure. Also she finds way to describe inner character thinkings in abstract very abstract ways, where you literally have to read between the lines.