★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ The Good Twin By Marti Green
The Good Twin follows two women living drastically different lives. Mallory has grown up poor with just her and her single mother to get by. Charly grew up with unthinkable riches, never needing to look at a price tag let alone worry where her next meal will come from. Although they may seem to come from completely different worlds, there is one thing connecting them. They are identical twins. Separated at birth and no idea that the other exists.
The first thing that drew me to this book was the cover. So sinister, yet also pretty simple. A split screen of a face with one half painted red. The title brings even more questions. Who is the good twin? What makes the bad twin bad? I needed to know more.
I really liked the premise of this book. It asks questions about nature vs. nurture which I always find fascinating. How similar actually are identical twins? Would they make the same choices given different upbringings? All the right questions were there in this book. I just didn’t enjoy the answers.
I’m not sure that I would categorize this book as a dark thriller with any kind of surprising twist. Maybe it’s just because I’ve read plenty of thrillers in the past, but I could see most of the twists a mile away. Certain parts of how this book was written just didn’t make sense with how the book played out. The ending specifically was so unbelievable. It seemed rushed and not fully fleshed out.
The characters were all pretty unlikeable. The husband, Ben, especially was deplorable. Even the twins Mallory and Charly were more unbelievable than unlikeable. Certain decisions they made along the way just didn’t make sense. It felt like the character’s decisions were made solely to further the plot rather than decisions a real person would make. There is a specific part that doesn’t make any sense when you’re reading, but when the twist is revealed it finally fits together.
I really think this book could have been great. The overall premise is so intriguing, but when the story is broken down into the characters and the plotline, it just doesn’t hold up. I’m disappointed, but the beginning had so much promise, but the ending just really fell flat.
