The Secret Twin (review)

The secret twin of the title is Noah's conjoined brother, who died shortly after birth in what's known as a "sacrifice surgery" to allow Noah to survive. Living now with his grandmother, who's convalescing from surgery under the care of a nurse, thirteen-year-old Noah still views himself as "half a boy," and he's afraid that his dead twin's influence still operates in some way; he's particularly concerned with the actions of a neighborhood sniper, who's randomly shooting inoffensive residents. Meanwhile, Nurse Grace watches Noah, trying to bring the undernourished and isolated boy out of his shell, hinting at the truth about the outcome of his grandmother's surgery, and dealing with her own past tragedies. This starts out as a neogothic with echoes of Gantos' twin-themed The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs (BCCB 6/06) in Noah's obsession with his dead twin, and experienced genre readers will early on guess that Noah's grandmother never made it back home from surgery. Ultimately, though, the book is about the taming of the gothic, and its tone thaws into warmth as it reflects Noah's changes under the heedless and anxious attentions of Nurse Grace. The gothic chill is more powerful than the story of recovery, and the shifting of viewpoint that keeps Grace at bay with a third-person narration while Noah himself narrates his section additionally foregrounds control over connection; the sniper story is creepy and suggestive, with its Tarot-card symbolism (images of Tarot cards introduce text sections), but it doesn't interweave as well as Noah's and Grace's tales. There's still plenty for fans of psychological drama to chew over and interpret, however, and fans of rescue drama will be relieved to see the half a boy finally becoming whole.