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Tuesday, 20 October 2015

Book Review - One by Sarah Crossan

One

Author: Sarah Crossan

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction. 

Published: September 1 2015

Pages: 448 pages (Paperback Edition) (Bloomsbury Children)

Read: August 2015

Rating: 5 Stars




Grace and Tippi are twins - conjoined twins. And their lives are about to change. No longer able to afford homeschooling, they must venture into the world - a world of stares, sneers and cruelty. Will they find more than that at school? Can they find real friends? And what about love? But what neither Grace or Tippi realises is that a heart-wrenching decision lies ahead. A decision that could tear them apart. One that will change their lives even more than they ever imagined...From Carnegie Medal shortlisted author Sarah Crossan, this moving and beautifully crafted novel about identity, sisterhood and love ultimately asks one question: what does it mean to want and have a soulmate?

Book 35/60 - 2015 Goodreads Reading Challenge

Let me just start off by saying that I read this book in one sitting in the space of three hours. That is how addicted I became. How obsessive. I kept saying to myself I'll put this down now after I finish this part, then the next part and I continued till I realised that I had read the full novel.

One is about conjoined twins. It's about their life, how they live, how they love and how they are ultimately the same and different all at once, One is about Grace and Tippi's life changing, how it goes from safe to dangerous, how feelings they've never felt before edge towards the surface and how they must decide for themselves the about biggest thing they will ever have to face. 

I must mention that this book is written in verse. It is the first novel that I have ever read that was written in verse and I extremely enjoyed it. I was worried about reading verse at first, I felt I wouldn't be able to connect with that style of writing and I was wrong. The truth is Sarah Crossan wrote this beautifully. We see completely from Grace's point of view and I connected with her strongly and got to learn so much about Tippi from Grace.

The concept behind this story, in my opinion, was unique. I have never read any other book that was written about conjoined twins and I was amazed by the story. The story of Tippi and Grace kept me hooked until that very bitter yet promising ending.

This was a book that made me smile, that made me laugh, that made me fall in love and that made me cry. I would highly recommend this to everyone, especially contemporary and realistic fiction lovers. Because of reading One I am fully open to reading other novels written in verse such as Ellen Hopkins which I would have shut out before simply because of the style of writing, but this book has opened up a whole new world of reading for me.

As a side note, I got to meet Sarah Crossan at her launch party of One in Dublin and she was such a nice person. She told us all about her inspiration for this novel and all the research she conducted to make this book what it was. I have also written a post about this wonderful event which you can find here!

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