When Mallory starts babysitting for identical twins, Marilyn and Carolyn, she immediately thinks that the twins are adorable. Not only are they identical, but almost everything else about them is identical. They dress in identical outfits. Their bedroom looks like there is a mirror in the middle. Most of all, their attitude is the same. Bad.
Eventually though, Mallory manages to gain some insight. Perhaps the twins don’t want to be twins and as she gains the girls’ trust she realizes that her intuition was on point.
I knew several sets of twins growing up, including two of my siblings. I can’t remember knowing any identical twins though which makes sense as they are pretty rare. I do imagine though that being an identical twin would be both fun and challenging and I think this book did a good job at conveying the reality of being an identical twin. The twins struggle with having their own identity aside from being The Twins. Their parents see them as twins and dress them identically. Kids at school can’t tell them apart so they get treated as one person instead of two. There is no mention of how their teachers treat them…but probably it’s a similar situation. They do have different interests though and finally through that they are finally able to gain some independence.
I enjoyed this book. I liked getting to know Mallory a bit more and this was a good insight into her family dynamics. I loved how she was able to help the two girls realize that they could advocate for what they needed in order to gain independence. One of the things that I am finding with this reread is that I love when one of the girls helps one of their babysitting charges learn to advocate for themselves. They actually do quite a bit of it themselves with their own parents and sometimes with the parents of the kids they sit for but I think it’s always special when they instead help the kids themself speak up as that is such an important skill to have.
As of right now, I am officially caught up on reviews. I am still hoping to post something everyday, but as I no longer have a queue of books to review I don’t know quite what that will mean yet. I am writing this four days from being published so I have a few days to either get another book read or come up with a few ideas to write about in the interim.