THE QUIET UNRAVELING OF EVE ELLAWAY

In Hooyenga’s YA psychological thriller, when one of a pair of identical twins is kidnapped, the remaining twin impersonates her abducted sister.

The exhausted father of infant twins Eve and Gen falls asleep in the park with his daughters in a stroller, giving a kidnapper the opportunity to snatch Gen. Fast-forward 18 years: Gen has never been found, and Eve, on the verge of going away to college, has been pretending for years (with her father’s help) to be both twins for the benefit of her mother, who has had a shaky sense of reality since the abduction. When Eve was little, she didn’t understand why her mother didn’t drive or do other things that most moms did; in fact, with each passing year, her mom’s isolation felt more normal. Now, Eve’s mom never even leaves her bedroom. Eve’s dad’s rules are: “Don’t talk about Gen at school. Tell people Mommy is sick and stays home.” Eve and “Gen” each have their own bedroom and their own set of clothes; Eve often dresses in Gen’s clothes when she visits with her mom, pretending to be her twin. Perverse as this is, Eve’s life becomes even more twisted when she realizes her mom prefers Gen to her; Eve starts to have conversations with Gen, who threatens to take over Eve’s life. Hooyenga has written a true page-turner. The premise of a father and daughter going to such extreme lengths to keep an unstable wife and mother from plummeting further into despair is frankly unbelievable (does mom never want to see both her girls at the same time?), but once readers get past that, the story is irresistible. A major plot twist and a final shock are delightful surprises. The author’s sympathetic understanding of teens, the obstacles they encounter, and the dreams they keep is readily apparent.

A twin win: It’s hard to put down and stays with you after you finish.