This Darkness Mine

September 1, 2017

Gr 10 Up-Sasha Stone is a Midwestern "good girl": a smart, college-bound band geek with a preppy boyfriend and a close circle of friends. After a few mysterious texts and personal memories she doesn't feel are her own, she finds a photograph uncovering a past she didn't know existed: she was a twin sister. With a strained family life, Sasha discovers more about her twin through an unlikely source: her twin, or rather, the heart of her twin. Through a process called fetal reabsorption, Sasha's heart is really her twin's. Shanna, who is not a good girl, is trying to communicate with Sasha, turning her world upside down and leading into a series of plot twists and turns, and a downward spiral from her perfect high school life. Shanna is craving the life she never had-desiring bad boy Isaac, sex, and life in the fast lane- which causes Sasha's grades to plummet, her friends and boyfriend to become distant, and worst of all, her loss of the first chair in band. More character development of "Good Sasha" would make for a better contrast in personalities, as well as make the later claims of manipulation against Sasha stronger; however, it is an interesting read which addresses family issues and mental health, while blending the elements of a psychological thriller. VERDICT Recommended for older teens and fans of disturbing yet satisfying plot twists.-Doneanne Soult, Westampton Middle School, NJ

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2017
A perfectionist prude is slowly revealed to have bigger character flaws.Sasha Stone is the stereotypical driven, uptight white girl, her whole life structured around achieving her goals, to the point where she has no sympathy for others. She practices her clarinet until her hands ache. Her boyfriend is pleasant and equally high-achieving, and her interactions with her friends have a mocking, scornful edge. But Sasha is normal...until she starts having blackouts, until she starts getting texts from bad boy Isaac, acting like he knows her, until she discovers she had a twin sister named Shanna, whom Sasha absorbed in the womb. It's Shanna's heart in Sasha's chest, and it's Shanna's heart that loves Isaac--not Sasha, so she claims. The story swings from paranormal nonsense to medical melodrama when it's revealed that Sasha has cardiomyopathy and needs a new heart to survive. The mentally ill can't get new hearts, so Sasha must find a way to deal with Shanna...although it won't be easy, as Sasha's own darkness within grows stronger. The author pulls her punches by camouflaging Sasha's darker tendencies with the Shanna storyline, undermining what could have been a fascinating character study. It's a shame the author couldn't have been as ruthless as her character. (Paranormal thriller. 16-18)

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September 1, 2017
Grades 9-12 McGinnis' (The Female of the Species, 2016) latest novel introduces protagonist Sasha Stone, a relentlessly driven high-school senior who discovers a dangerous secret about herself. As first chair clarinet and top of her class, Sasha has always been an overachiever. As she starts to feel an inexplicable connection to Isaac, the school's resident bad boy, she begins to question her identity. When she loses track of huge chunks of time, Sasha takes matters into her own hands and discovers an ultrasound of herself and her twin sister, Shanna. Ever since Sasha absorbed her sister in utero, Shanna has always been there, lurking in the darkness of Sasha's mind. Communicating through exchanged notes, Sasha and Shanna wrestle over control of Sasha's body and the boy they are both falling for. Though not the strongest of McGinnis' signature psychological thrillers, the novel's most compelling feature is the cryptic, surrealist style with which Shanna writes. Rich imagery and a ruthless protagonist propel the novel forward to its shocking, ominous conclusion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)