Twins are supposed to be bonded like no other people. But Danny and Pam have a chance encounter with danger one night; it seems they may be divided forever. Walking home after a movie, Danny has someone hold a knife to him and then they turn and attack his sister. Though Pam survives the attack with minor physical injuries, she has plenty of mental ones left to deal with, and so does Danny.

The guilt they both feel over the event leaves them feeling divided. Danny feels there is more he should have done to protect Pam and he feels ashamed. Pam can’t help but feel if she had dressed differently or if she had acted some other way, that she would not have been a victim that night. Pam refuses to go to school for weeks, and she notices that not one of her “friends” has tried to see if she was okay. The more Danny and Pam are drawn into themselves the further they get from ever being close again.

This book really examines an attack from multiple points of view. Sometimes victims have a hard time understanding they are not the only ones affected by the attack and many times they are not the only victim. In this story, the brother is just as much a victim because of what happened to his sister and what part he had to play in that event. When you go farther into the family history, you find the attack even affects their father from memories in his past. But through the hardship, this family just might find a way to come out better than they were before. A very moving and enlightening story about survival and family. ( )

This is a story about twins who experience an assault very differently. It divides them as they struggle to cope and face emotions of regret and guilt. The plot needs some work. There are many loose ends that never get tidied up. Readers can usually handle a detail or two, but there are far too many characters and smaller events that seem to hold no purpose.
I'm reviewing this book after receiving an advanced reader's copy. ( )

Pam and Danny are twins living with their widowed dad. They are attacked on a trail behind their home and spooked by it. While Pam befriends Carol who helps her cope and takes on a "mother" role, Danny cleverly becomes a detective and helps police solve the crime and arrest the assailant. ( )

Problems contained in this book were solved much too easily, and the ending happened much too fast. ( )

I know this is a young adult book, but regardless of audience, the choppy nature of the book was a bit jarring. With very little character development, this book was almost written from someone's journal. We have barely any history on the twins or their parents, and not much information on the assault itself. It's sort of a random collection of thoughts and emotions that don't really seem to connect to anything else. I wonder why the author chose to have Pam in first person and Danny in third person; if there was a reason this made sense, I'm not sure what that reason is. This is simply a snapshot in time, and could have used a more complete fleshing out of the characters, the incident, and how and why it affected them. A disappointing read. ( )