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Title: Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited
ISBN: 1428169970
Author:
Paula Bernstein
Elyse Schein
Publicate Date: 2007-10
Publish: 2007-10
List Price: $34.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Audio CD
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $22.30
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $22.20
Amazon Merchant Price: $26.59
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Intrinsically intersting story
The bare outline of the story is captivating: twin girls are separated at birth, neither knows that the other exists, nor do the adoptive parents know, and then they not only find each other, they also find out that they were separated as part of a failed psychology study, and that mental illness is behind some of the experiments that were done.
But despite the intrinsic interest in such a tale, the resulting book is less well-done than one might expect, especially since both twins are writers. Each event in their journey to discover the truth about themselves is told twice, in the voice of each woman, and there is a great deal more repetition than even this somewhat awkward device would entail. Again and again they discuss with each other and with us whether they're glad they found each other or not, how it feels to see one's own mannerisms in another person, and whether or not they really want to find their birth mother. Their soul-searching doesn't seem to go very deep, it just seems repetitive.
And one of the oddly annoying things about their story is that in their photos on the back cover, they don't look like identical twins. In fact, they look more like mother and daughter. It's not quite clear how they even know that they *are* identical.
I read this in a couple of days, and once I got straight who was who and which voice belonged to which sister, I enjoyed the suspense of what they would learn. But this does seem like it would have made a better magazine article than book.
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2: Couldn't put it down
I could not stop reading this book -- devoured it in a weekend. This is not just an analysis of the twin relationship or of adoption practice. Nor is it a typical narrative. It is a riveting personal story, like a diary, honestly told by two people suddenly faced with a stunningly unique challenge to their notions of what it means to be "me." The personal nature of the storytelling is what gripped me -- at times a bit ragged, at times emotionally inconsistent, and with twists and turns no novelist would dare invent. It's very real, and I often found myself wishing i could just go have coffee with Paula and Elyse to hear their latest. They are remarkably introspective people who question rather than just accept.
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3: Excellent book
I loved this book. I love reading about twins and their similarities. This is a fun and interesting story about twins who were separated at birth.
Great summer reading.
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4: A gripping book!
What a GRIPPING book! My husband and I listened to this book on CD on a long road trip. It was a fascinating story, well told -- I almost regretted having to stop the CD at rest stops. I pushed the "on" button again the minute we got into the car. I usually have the bad habit of nodding off while my husband is driving, but I was wide awake every minute on this trip, caught up in the story of twins separated at birth.
Alas, the trip was shorter than the recorded book, so we literally sat in the car in the motel parking lot for an hour in order to finish the book. We HAD to know how the twins' search for their birth-mother turned out.
I highly recommend "Identical Strangers."
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5: Interesting story.
Twins adopted at birth to separate homes reunite at the age of 35. Always knowing each was adopted the sisters had no idea that they were part of a set broken up in 1969 originally to be studied by scientists.
This interesting story follows how each sister must revise her own idea of what makes her unique and what is nature and what is nurture. And how to integrate their doppelganger into the full lives they already live.
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