The Secrets We Keep

I was SO fascinated by this whole concept! I had friends in high school and college who are twins, and they used to switch places ALL the time (like, if one didn’t want to take a math test or something- because honestly, who ever wants to take a math test?) but I found it amusing, because I could always tell them apart! I think in this case, there wasn’t a reason to doubt that it was Maddy, and in the aftermath and the grief… it just became so. PLUS, real Maddy wasn’t around to compare Ella to. It just worked in the situation, believably.

Let’s start with the believability piece, because I know that was one of my worries when I started the book. But there was no need, because it felt very authentic. Ella really believes that everyone would be happier if Maddy were the one who’d made it out alive, and since they think she had, she goes with it. How sad, in so many ways. Obviously, it’s incredibly heartbreaking that Maddy is gone, and that Ella has lost her twin, but what an awful feeling to really and wholeheartedly think that everyone you know would prefer your sister to be alive.

I sobbed for a good, long time. Most of the book, in fact. Ella was struggling on so many levels. She’d lost her twin, and I loved how the “sisterly bond” thing was brought into play, because it is very real. But then while she was grieving for her sister, she was also grieving for her own life, the one she’d willingly abandoned in that split-second decision. It was very hard to read, but that was because it was so well done you couldn’t help but feel for Ella.

Taking on Maddy’s life was not the picnic Ella assumed it was either. Maddy’s friends were so…. drama. And not in a good way, in a Mean Girls-esque kind of way. Yes, Maddy was popular, but at what price? Jenna, the best friend, was the worst of the bunch. Of course, Ella wasn’t in love with Maddy’s boyfriend Alex either, but she went on pretending. Maddy was keeping her share of secrets too, of which Ella had to decipher.

The relationships in this book are very strong. Ella’s best friend Josh has to grapple with the loss of Ella, which is so hard for her to watch. And she begins to realize that things with her parents weren’t as cut and dry as she’d thought. It really helps Ella to see a very different perspective on not only her life, but Maddy’s as well, and the relationships they both had.

Bottom Line: The Secrets We Keep not only had me feeling things for Ella and Maddy and their loved ones, but also made me think a lot about my own life, how perhaps the way we perceive ourselves isn’t really accurate- and how maybe, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s a beautifully written book that deals with loss, grief, finding oneself, and holding onto hope. It explores relationships with family, friends, and yes, romantic interests in a way that is quite unique, as it is from a perspective that few of us would ever encounter.

Holy Moses, I was not expecting to love this book the way I did. I had zero intentions of reading it in one sitting, but that's just what happened. THE SECRETS WE KEEP sucked me in from the first chapter and kept me captive until the very end.

There's something about twins that fascinates me. Maybe it's that built-in soulmate angle or having a confidant forever. Despite my lofty ideals, Ella and Maddy are pretty opposite and exist separately. Ella keeps her head down while Maddy is always searching for the spotlight. When Ella wakes up after a tragic accident where she was driving Maddy's car and the identical passenger was killed, everyone assumes she is Maddy.

Maddy, the golden girl. Feeling responsible, Ella decides to bury Ella so she can live out the life Maddy was meant to have. But it's never that simple. There are layers of lies and deception in Maddy's world that she shielded Ella from. So now Ella must unravel the mysterious surrounding her sister's life and decide if she wants to right the wrongs, but if she does that, she'll be outing herself.

Ella is such a fantastic character. Complex and beautiful, and my heart broke for her. She genuinely believes that everyone is relived Maddy is the surviving twin and her guilt eats up my gut the way it eats up the pages. She tries so hard to be the Maddy everyone loved, slowly losing more of Ella in the process. She is literally tearing herself apart the majority of the book.

Trish Leaver writes with spellbinding detail. A story like this could easily get cliché or overly dark. She tempers the darkness and somberness with subtle light. She truly pulls you into the mind of Ella, breaking down where Ella begins and Maddy ends.

This novel is 90% character driven and it's absolutely beautiful. I was sad to see it end, but the end is simply perfect.

Holy Moses, I was not expecting to love this book the way I did. I had zero intentions of reading it in one sitting, but that's just what happened. THE SECRETS WE KEEP sucked me in from the first chapter and kept me captive until the very end.

There's something about twins that fascinates me. Maybe it's that built-in soulmate angle or having a confidant forever. Despite my lofty ideals, Ella and Maddy are pretty opposite and exist separately. Ella keeps her head down while Maddy is always searching for the spotlight. When Ella wakes up after a tragic accident where she was driving Maddy's car and the identical passenger was killed, everyone assumes she is Maddy.

Maddy, the golden girl. Feeling responsible, Ella decides to bury Ella so she can live out the life Maddy was meant to have. But it's never that simple. There are layers of lies and deception in Maddy's world that she shielded Ella from. So now Ella must unravel the mysterious surrounding her sister's life and decide if she wants to right the wrongs, but if she does that, she'll be outing herself.

Ella is such a fantastic character. Complex and beautiful, and my heart broke for her. She genuinely believes that everyone is relived Maddy is the surviving twin and her guilt eats up my gut the way it eats up the pages. She tries so hard to be the Maddy everyone loved, slowly losing more of Ella in the process. She is literally tearing herself apart the majority of the book.

Trish Leaver writes with spellbinding detail. A story like this could easily get cliché or overly dark. She tempers the darkness and somberness with subtle light. She truly pulls you into the mind of Ella, breaking down where Ella begins and Maddy ends.

This novel is 90% character driven and it's absolutely beautiful. I was sad to see it end, but the end is simply perfect.

I bought The Secrets We Keep by Trisha Leaver from Barnes & Noble and this is my honest review.

The Secrets We Keep is about two twin sisters who get into a tragic accident. The more popular sister Maddie dies in the accident. When Ella wakes up in the hospital she is at first confused as to who she is, but then she recognizes Alex her sisters boyfriend. Alex of course is under the impression that Ella his Maddie. He does his best to soothe her, and soon Ella makes the decision that losing Maddie would hurt a lot more people than it would hurt to lose her. With that in mind she chooses to pretend to be Maddie for their sake. The only person she forgets to think about is, her best friend Josh…

This book was short but very interesting. I could not put it down for one minute. As the pages flew by I found myself getting sort of annoyed with “Maddie” the whole time I just wanted her to tell someone at least Josh but ya know you can’t get everything you want! The emotions strewn throughout the book were incredible! The fact that I felt for every single one of these characters, even the dog! Makes up for the fact that I was upset with Ella for not telling everyone who she really was.

I also enjoyed the parts of the book where Ella was trying to figure out what had happened between Maddy and her best friend. Ella wanted to fix whatever it was or in the very least find out what had happened so she could deal with it. Honestly I cannot say anything bad about this book I pretty much loved it too pieces. It had a good mix of drama/action as well as sadness and emotion. It very much deserved 5 stars!

uh... this resembles the film "The Pretty One"...

Maddy and Ella are identical twins, on the outside at least. They have very different personalities though, different set of friends, goals, etc. Maddy being popular and outgoing, Ella more serious and interested in art and hoped to pursue that in collage. A tragic accident claims the life of one sister, leaving the other full of guilt and confusion.

They say that twins have a certain closeness and "sense" of the other, identical twins are also known to pull pranks or fool people pretending to be one another. What if it wasn't a joke though? After the accident, family and friends are mistaken on which sister has survived and she in turn just doesn't bother to correct them and steps into her sister's life and finds out more about her than she knew. Some things you cannot imagine and would not believe if you didn't see and hear with your own ears and eyes.

I thoroughly enjoyed this page turner. It reads quick and is good for high school and young adult target audience. I'm 45 and still found it interesting and well worth my time to read. Great book.

Well, I have always been and probably always will be a sucker for books about twins - particularly identical ones - thanks to a childhood reading diet of every Sweet Valley series possible. The twins here at the center of this novel have grown apart over the past three and a half years of high school. Maddy is the popular, athletic and more conniving twin (in other words, the "Jessica") whereas Ella is the brainy, artistic twin with a much closer-knit circle of friends (the "Elizabeth"). On a rainy night, Maddy begs Ella to once again bail her out of trouble which kicks off an electrifying plot. The book is shockingly riveting - and not just because it definitely feels like one of those Sweet Valley Special Editions... even not SVH-fans will find this fast-paced plot hard to set aside. It's a very quick and engaging read. I definitely will keep my eyes out for more from Leaver! I wonder if her next novel will remind me so much of my original foray into YA fiction...

While I do not have a sister, the idea of giving up one’s whole existence for the sake of another is both poignant and painful to absorb. In The Secrets We Keep, readers travel through Ella Lawton’s life – that of a semi-outcast whose popular twin sister, Maddy, has cast her aside for the sake of the “in-crowd.” It is a shunning that Ella finds horrifically painful, but she deals with it by shutting out many people, her parents included.

The one friend she has is Josh, a fellow art-addict and equal misfit.

All Ella wants is to leave the cliques of high school life behind with Josh at her side and reinvent herself at Rhode Island School of Design. That’s their plan . . . until one night on an ice-covered road leaves Maddy dead and Ella devastated. Mistaken for Maddy, Ella takes everyone’s relief and joy that MADDY is alive as a sign that maybe she should leave herself dead, and take over Maddy’s flawless life. She believes everyone will be better off if she buries herself and her dreams, but she quickly learns that Maddy’s perfect life was built on lies and insecurities . . . and staying dead may not be possible for long, especially when Josh begins to suspect that his beloved Ella is not really six-feet-under after all.

Great story with fabulous characters who walk off the page. A sister story unlike anything I have ever read and guaranteed to grab onto teen readers and keep them turning pages late into the night! My 13-year-old daughter would devour this!

Before I get into the story, my thoughts about the mystery, the setting, the main characters and how they interact with each other I wanted to share some of my feelings on sibling relationships.

I've seen the whole gamut of sibling relationships from outright disgust and hatred, to close friendship, it seems that whatever people feel about their siblings, they rarely go halfway. The same seems to be true for the parents and I've always thought that siblings with the most close relationships are likely the ones that had the easiest time with their parents.

I'm coming at this as an observer. I was an only child until I was seventeen. Most of my friends had siblings and I watched them play and fight them with envy. I've also seen the destruction of having parents who clearly prefer one child over the other(s). It isn't just a problem for the less liked child, the favored one is affected in strange ways too.

Therein lies the damage and back to the book, it was a theme throughout the story, that of the twins, Maddy was the preferred child. That even with allowances made for Ella's feelings and prejudices, that it was always clear that Maddy was liked more by her parents than Ella was. This gave me such an icky feeling as I read the book. I get it that Maddy was the social butterfly, she had tons of friends, a hot rich boyfriend and always had something going on, but what kind of parents would treat Ella like the ugly almost doppelganger? Worst of all, that Ella was so conditioned to think of her sister as so much more valuable than herself that she barely even thought twice about stepping into her sister's life so that no one would have to suffer a world without Maddy.

So pretty much from the first chapter I was riveted. Along the way the side characters reference cryptic events and Ella tries to figure out what was happening the night before the accident and what left her sister so upset that she was sitting alone, outside, crying.

I suppose the only thing that didn't entirely ring true was how willing Ella was to always help her. She grumbled and promised herself not to help Maddy again. But, in the end, she always caved.

I highly reccomend this book!

While I don't always go for contemporary stories, this one worked for me mostly because I really liked how Ella, the surviving sister, is characterized. She's completely traumatized, as she believes that she's responsible for her twin's death and decides to "become" Maddy. This is more of a coping mechanism than anything, I believe. She doesn't do it out of spite or because she thinks her twin's life was so much better than hers, she does it as a way to stay close to her sister (unconsciously, especially at first). A well-written story of grief and love.