Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited

A book that grabs you from the start Identical Strangers: A Memo

A book that grabs you from the start
Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein is a true story about just that: twins separated and reunited. The twins were separated by an adoption agency for the purpose of a twin study. During the time of this study, the researchers and psychiatrists didn’t tell the families the baby they were adopting was a twin or part of a twin study. Elyse Schein contacted the Louise Wise adoption agency looking for non-identifying information about her birth mother. The information that came back was that she had a twin. Next thing, the twins are re-united.
This book is written very well. The writing keeps the reader interested because it is written in the point of view of both twins. Each twin writes about their account on the same event. This way the reader can feel the emotions of each twin separately. The book is written by both twins and neither twin holds back the feelings and thoughts they had during the time period the book was written about. Most people probably think that finding out you had a twin would be exciting and cool. The twins do a very good job showing that that isn’t always the case, and a lot of the time it is confusing and hard. The feeling each of them feel are different from each other, and that makes the story interesting and easy to keep an interest.
The story they tell about finding each other, getting to know each other, and their search to find answers about the twin study they were a part of and their birth family is really interesting. It was a long process for them but the way they told the story didn’t drag on. They kept the story to the point, but didn’t leave out so much that the story wasn’t complete. It had the right balance of details. The one element to the story that could have used some work was the use of adoption and legal vocabulary that the ordinary person may not know what it means; for example non-identifying information. Over-all the book was written well.
The book has strong themes about nature vs. nurture, and family. The book is centered around those two ideas, and send the reader a message about how it is possible to let a complete stranger into your life and let them become part of your family. I don’t have any major dislikes about the book. I do have many likes. I really enjoyed how the twin’s reactions and feelings inflicted feeling within myself and had me wanting to keep reading to find out what happens next. I also found the concept of the story to be very interesting. I would recommend the book to anyone who finds interest in separated twins and twins in general. I would give the book an overall rating of 8 out of 10. Overall, the book was written well, the writing style was a good change, and the story was a page turner.

a must read!!

i enjoyed this from start to finish. such a heart felt story! what an amazing journey!!

Not one of the better books I've read

I did not care for this book. In fact, I didn't even finish it. I kept thinking that it just had to get better, but it didn't. I got half way through and it just wasn't holding my interest. The cover and title made it sound much easier reading. I do not recommend it.

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