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“An addictive thriller that will keep readers burning through pages . . . sneakily hypnotic.”—Los Angeles Times
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Public Library, PopSugar
“You be me, and I’ll be you,” I whispered.
As children, Sam and Elli were two halves of a perfect whole: gorgeous identical twins whose parents sometimes couldn’t even tell them apart. They fell asleep to the sound of each other’s breath at night, holding hands in the dark. And once Hollywood discovered them, they became B-list child TV stars, often inhabiting the same role.
But as adults, their lives have splintered. After leaving acting, Elli reinvented herself as the perfect homemaker: married to a real estate lawyer, living in a house just blocks from the beach. Meanwhile, Sam has never recovered from her failed Hollywood career, or from her addiction to the pills and booze that have propped her up for the last fifteen years.
Sam hasn't spoken to her sister since her destructive behavior finally drove a wedge between them. So when her father calls out of the blue, Sam is shocked to learn that Elli’s life has been in turmoil: her husband moved out, and Elli just adopted a two-year-old girl. Now she’s stopped answering her phone and checked in to a mysterious spa in Ojai. Is her sister just decompressing, or is she in trouble? Could she have possibly joined a cult? As Sam works to connect the dots left by Elli’s baffling disappearance, she realizes that the bond between her and her sister is more complicated than she ever knew.
I’ll Be You shows Janelle Brown at the top of her game: a story packed with surprising revelations and sharp insights about the choices that define our families and our lives—and could just as easily destroy them.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
April 26, 2022 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780525479215
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780525479215
- File size: 2524 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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November 1, 2021
Identical twins Ellie and Sam are former child actors whose success crash-landed as they entered adulthood. Ellie has contentedly settled into marriage with a real estate agent, while Sam is now addicted to drugs and alcohol, bitter about her lost career. Then she learns that life for Ellie isn't as good as it looks; her husband has left her even as she adopts a child, and she's checked into a mysterious spa in Ojai, CA. Is Ellie getting the help she needs there, or is she entrapped by a cult? From the New York Times best-selling author of Pretty Things.
Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Starred review from February 14, 2022
Bestseller Brown (Pretty Things) infuses this twist-packed mystery with an intense story of creating one’s identity, rife with deep family trauma and a low-key, creepy depiction of the dark side of twin intimacy. Samantha Logan’s dream-worthy stint as a child TV star depended highly on her identical twin Elli’s initially grudging participation, which eventually created deep bonds between them. In adulthood, Sam’s alcohol addiction and Elli’s traditional lifestyle in Santa Barbara, Calif., has left the two women estranged. So when Elli disappears after going to a mysterious spa in Ojai, with her husband having left her and their parents calling Sam in to help with the toddler Elli has recently adopted without informing her family, Sam feels sure that something is profoundly wrong in her sister’s life. Brown seamlessly uses Sam’s retrospection into the twins’ childhood experiences impersonating and protecting each other both as character development and plot device, letting the latter flow naturally while never feeling cheesy. The perfectly paced emotional reveals of the twins’ shared history pull the reader toward fierce investment in Elli’s safety and the sisters’ reconnection. Brown has upped her game with this one. -
April 15, 2022
A suspenseful account of twin sisters and their secret lives. Sam and Elli are identical twins who spent their childhood years, and then their teenage ones, as actors. Now grown, they've also grown apart--Elli in the direction of a husband, a career as a florist, and an upper-middle-class life; Sam in a downward spiral of addiction. Then Sam, one year sober--a year in which she hasn't spoken with Elli--gets a call from their parents: Elli has gone away to some sort of spa; could Sam help out with the little girl she adopted? Sam arrives to find everything slightly awry: Elli's incommunicado, their mother's in denial, and meanwhile, Sam finds some worrying paperwork at Elli's house. What's this organization Elli's been giving large sums of money to? Brown weaves together all these strands into a delicious work of intrigue and suspense. Sam narrates the first part of the novel, which deftly alternates between the present and the twins' days of fame in the past. Elli narrates the second part, and while their voices sound rather too similar, Brown adroitly explores their individual psychologies--their very different interests, needs, motivations, and, ultimately, their reactions to their early careers. The prose is smooth and fluid throughout, and if the story occasionally gets bogged down in the twins' backstory, that complaint is a minor one. Overall, the narrative sprints ahead. You won't want to stop reading until you find out what's happened. Minor flaws don't slow the forward propulsion of this compelling novel.COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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