Heartwarming Expose of Reunited Identical Twins

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	• Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited Elyse Schein, Paula Bernstein Random House, 2007 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 63 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Heartwarming Expose of Reunited Identical Twins

A stunning account of how idential twins were secretly separated at birth to be the subjects of a psychological study and how these twin girls were reunited. It is imcomprehensible that a "well-to-do" adoption agency in New York City could be a part of such deception.
Well-written account by the reunited identical twin sisters.

Fascinating

This is an enjoyable and compelling read. The diary like structure of the book provides a fascinating insight into the emotional impact of what must have been a completely bizarre and life altering experience for these girls.

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Couldn't Put This Down

This is a gripping story, I read it in one sitting. The two women meet in their thirties and share the same dna, but don't know each other. One, Elyse, is desperate to connect, the other, Paula has a family and seems scared of letting her twin into her life. They go through the identity issues all people struggle with, but on a huge scale. The two women then begin the search for the details of their birth mother and the odd twin study that they were part of. This is an amazing true story and the authors do not hold back, each telling their perspective through journal entries. Unsentimental and moving. Highly reccomend.

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Awesome!

I loved this book! I stayed up all night, till 6 am, until I finished it.

As a fellow female identical twin born in 1968, I feel I can easily relate to many of the twins' concerns about being alike and different. Many people want to have an identical twin, but it is not always so rosy with constant comparisons and judgements from others... and yourselves. I think many twins feel they are in their own personal, continuous twin study, which can be exhausting. Of course, despite this stress, I love my twin and she will always be my best friend.

I can understand why Elyse wanted to find her biological family. While warm and caring, her adoptive parents are too different from her to connect with, her adoptive mother has died and she has the troubled brother and nephew. Also, her foster care situation had possibly been significantly more stressful than Paula's. She was constantly dealing with change (moving to Oklahoma) and loss. It is no wonder she craved to connect with her biological family: she was feeling abandonment and alienation.

However, I can also sympathize with Paula's reaction (uncertainty) to Elyse finding her. Her life had been stable, her parents were easier to connect with, she attended great schools and has a wonderful family and career... why "fix" something she feels isn't broken (life could get messy)? And, she had no obligation to make this "stranger twin" happy. The fact that she stayed and ultimately thrived in this uncomfortable situation shows courage and humility (overcoming her initial arrogance).

Paula should not feel bad about being on Prozac despite her relative "easy" life. I've known plenty of people in our generation who have a life like Paula's, but still feel bad sometimes. The self-imposed and peer pressure to succeed and be excellent at everything in this "perfect world" can be unbearable.

I would love to see this book made into a movie. It reminds me a bit of "The DaVinci Code" where the main characters are on an intellectual research-type quest and then, at the end, one of them discovers she has a distinguished relative and the other realizes the location of a highly sought-after object. In "Identical Strangers," the authors discover early on that they are twins, but continue to make exciting discoveries about their biological mother, her family, the secret twin study and their feelings for each other. With the greatest discovery, coming at the end, when they both feel closure and peace with the results of their quest and are able to completely accept the undeniable draw towards each other.

Not sure I'd cast the Olsen Twins for the movie though. ;-) he he

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, page 10, 11, 12, 13

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