Review: Beside Myself by Ann Morgan

Beside Myself

by Ann Morgan

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Pages: 336

Format: ARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  A literary thriller about identical twins, Ellie and Helen, who swap places aged six. At first it is just a game, but then Ellie refuses to swap back. Forced into her new identity, Helen develops a host of behavioural problems, delinquency and chronic instability. With their lives diverging sharply, one twin headed for stardom and the other locked in a spiral of addiction and mental illness, how will the deception ever be uncovered? Exploring questions of identity, selfhood, and how other people's expectations affect human behaviour, this novel is as gripping as it is psychologically complex. 


Kritters Thoughts:  A set of twins that at an early age play a game and switch places which I imagine most twins do, but one twin decides she likes the swap and convinces everyone that she is now not herself and continues to live her life as the other twin.  This sets crazy things in motion.  Told in alternating chapters between the past when the switch happens and the present when a twin has been in an accident and is in coma and the other twin is pulled back into her life.

First, let me say that this is told from one point of view and the reader is basically told that she is untrustworthy and I am not usually a fan of untrustworthy narrators and this book proved my point.  I spent more time in the book guessing as to if what she was saying was truth and even just trying to figure out what she was trying to tell me then I like to do actually just reading the story.  

The one thing that made me think in this book is how one defines themself against others and how that makes you you.  I think about what makes my sister and I different people beyond looking different as in this book they are twins that look alike, but if my sister took on my qualities and I took on hers how crazy it would be if we lived each other's lives.  

I wouldn't count this author out from this book, I think I would still read her next book.  


Rating: enjoyable, but didn't leave me wanting more

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from TLC Book Tours.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.