BOOK REVIEW: Gemini by Sonya Mukherjee

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date for this book is July 26, 2016.

Seventeen-year-old conjoined twins, Clara and Hailey, have lived in the same small town their entire lives—no one stares at them anymore. But there are cracks in their quiet existence and they’re slowly becoming more apparent. Clara and Hailey are at a crossroads. Clara wants to stay close to home, avoid all attention, and study the night sky. Hailey wants to travel the world, learn from great artists, and dance with mysterious boys. As high school graduation approaches, each twin must untangle her dreams from her sister’s, and figure out what it means to be her own person.

Wow. What a story. I have never read a book featuring conjoined twins before and this was such a good one. Clara and Hailey have lived all their lives in the same town. They have friends and no one stares at them or makes them feel like a freak. That is exactly why their mom chose the town as a place to live: so no one could make them feel like freaks. But now Clara and Hailey are getting closer to graduating high school and they are realizing that they want different things. Of course, being conjoined means you can't do anything without the other so these differences are an issue.

The book is told through alternating POVs and I admit that I had a hard time telling them apart at first. Clara loves looking at the stars and the constellations and she starts to panic at just the thought of going outside her comfort zone and leaving home. Hailey loves art and she dreams of traveling to different cities and going to college outside of their town. Despite the fact that they are conjoined twins, I thought both of the twins were so relatable. They want to grow up and be independent from each other. But the fact that they're conjoined makes that impossible. I really loved their relationship and how much they depended on each other.

As much as Clara and Hailey's mom annoyed me, I loved her because she was so REAL and PRESENT. That is so unique in YA books. Their mom tries to act like everything is normal and they can do anything they want to do while keeping them sheltered in their little town and making sure NO ONE takes any pictures to post them online. She is extremely protective and it seems like she is very sensitive to other parents' of conjoined twins making the decision to separate them because she chose not to do that. Yes, she was annoying in her overprotectiveness, but I got it. There was some growing pains between her and the girls because they wanted to become more independent and their mom was scared that they would suffer on their own. 

I really felt like the author did her research with this one and honestly, I was expecting this one to be way more heavy than it was. But these were just two ordinary girls who just happened to be conjoined and that made their struggle for independence that much harder. And the best part? Even though there was some romance in this book, it was NOT THE FOCUS. The focus of this book was 1000% on the family and that made me so happy. I was so incredibly happy with the ending. I won't give anything away, but I will say that I was scared the author was going to go a certain way with it. But the ending was realistic and I was grateful for that.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Buy this one!