I love reading books about family relationships and the thing that caught my eye with this book is that it depicts the relationship between identical twins; one who follows the rules, and one who doesn’t.

Bex and her identical twin sister Naomi used to be close. They used to be able to finish each other’s sentences, used to know exactly what the other was thinking. They were a matching pair.

And then something changed.

When Naomi walks out of the house the night before their last GCSE exam and doesn’t come back, Bex has to think hard about how to find her. Bex is forced to unpick their shared history and the memories and everything she thought she knew is called into question.

With her worries dismissed by everyone, the only person Bex can trust is a stranger – Josh – as she tries to piece together a picture of the person she thought she shared everything with. As Bex chases Naomi, she realizes it isn’t just whether she can find her twin: it’s whether she knows her at all.

I admit, the book does seem a bit cliché: one good twin, one bad twin. But it doesn’t ruin the book at all. The book has a very unique concept to it that I can’t talk about because of spoilers, but there is a key thing about Bex and Naomi’s relationship that was amazing and really well thought out on Morgan’s part.

“The way the mood had shifted when she walked into the kitchen… It had made her feel like an outsider in her own family”

– Lou Morgan, The Opposite of You

I did feel really sorry for Naomi because all she wanted was her sister back, to have those times back where they could sit with each other for hours and just laugh about everything. Naomi felt replaced and so I can understand why Naomi would want to live a different life; she doesn’t feel part of the one she’s already in. I just don’t think that Naomi’s character was explored as well as it should have been. I would loved to see some more character development, some background building… The characters just felt very flat to me.

I think this was because the plot was very fast and it could have easily had 100 more pages. Easily. The plot felt rushed and this meant that the characters got lost in a blur. I think that Morgan should have taken more time developing the plot and really could have dragged out some more of the dramatic bits to make it more gripping. Everything felt over in a matter of minutes, so the plot didn’t really do anything for me.

Disclaimer: this book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Released 4th May