Beautiful Lies by Jessica Warman

Confusing. Twins, Rachel and Alice, go to the carnival in the village. One sister gets on the Ferris wheel, and the other disappears. Can the narrator, the twin who rode the Ferris wheel and stayed safe, find her sister before it’s too late? Is our narrator at all reliable? And which twin is which? Can identical twins really feel each other’s pain?

I must admit that although I was absorbed and intrigued by this YA thriller up until the very end, I’m not sure I got it. One of the narrators is delusional (or is she?), and I never did figure out what was real and what was imaginary. I even went back and re-read the beginning and the final chapters, and I still didn’t understand. It made me feel dumb.

So, I recommend this novel, with all its twists and turns, to readers who are smarter than I am, or who pay better attention, or who don’t mind ambiguity. Actually, I don’t mind ambiguity, if I know that’s what it is and if it’s not just me being slow-witted. Would someone else out there read it and ‘splain it to me?

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