Books Not Decaf

Welcome to the intricate, disquieting world of the Bird twins, where one sister’s lies send the other back into their dangerous past.

When Kat Bird wakes up from a coma, she sees her mirror image: Jude, her twin sister. Kat remembers nothing except Jude, who must take on the momentous task of rebuilding their past block by block. But as the months progress, Kat begins to fear that, maybe, their childhood wasn’t nearly as idyllic as Jude wants her to believe—a realization that threatens their bond, their safety, and even their lives.

This one has been on my TBR for a little better than a year. The cover art nice and freaky, not so much in a scary way, but in more of an unsettling manner. Amnesia isn’t my favorite means of carrying a lot, but I was open to giving it a fair shot.

Unfortunately, I was rather unimpressed and disappointed with how…uninspired the ‘climax’ or epiphany or the ‘why’ was.

Spoiler-free (for the most part, it infers this element pretty early on):

The introduction of the cult was an interesting twist that, while I did guess at because of the cover, was shown to us differently than I had expected. While it was not necessarily a negative different, it also did not seem to be a purposeful different.

The reveal of each puzzle piece was rather anticlimactic. The importance behind a mentioned incident seemed inconsequential. Nothing Jude did in her past was felt to truly have an influence or weight on her present actions.

And the ending…just fell flat.

The beginning of the book, when there was hope that something wild or interesting was going to happen was probably the best part of the book.

Avoid the next section if you wish to avoid spoilers.

Spoilers:

This was very much a “tell not show” book, in my opinion.

Everything with Jude’s Rabbits – Genesis dying, “betraying” Violet – all seemed so insubstantial in how Jude reacted through the whole book. Sure, we were told how it impacted her young mind, but other than her trying to keep Kat from remembering it all, and Violet “forcing” Jude to finish their crusade to kill the old leaders, there were no real indications that she held real trauma or ghosts for those past events. Even then, with those elements, we were told she was influenced by these things, but it never felt real. And the threat of Violet was mediocre at best.

Kat’s reunion with the members of the cult and her mother was rather lackluster. She just ran away from Jude, excepted whatever was spoon-fed to her by an equivalent of a complete stranger with no questions, then just hung around while her sister hid away anytime she saw one of these people? Hm.

Then he just shoots himself, suddenly remorseful. Right, that makes sense.

It simply…felt forced and half-formed. It could have been pretty good. But it just didn’t hit the way I was hoping.

Rating: 3/5