First published 2010
Lindsey Rose is twenty-nine years old and has spent most of her life being the smart twin, the driven one, the sister who compensates for not looking like Alex by logging eighty-plus-hour weeks at a New York advertising agency. She is weeks away from a VP creative director title when one night blows everything apart. She retreats to her parents' house in Maryland, a place that feels frozen in time, while Alex floats through the rooms planning a lavish wedding to the man she considers her perfect match. Lindsey tells herself she is only hiding temporarily, quietly rebuilding her career from her childhood bedroom. But the harder she works to stay who she has always been, the more that identity starts to loosen. A family secret surfaces, and it does not stay contained to Lindsey alone. Both sisters find themselves looking at their own lives and each other with new eyes. The book sits with the particular exhaustion of women who have built themselves around one defining trait and then have to figure out what is left when that trait is no longer enough.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, adult, adult-fiction, womens-fiction, family-drama
Vibes: character-driven, emotional, intimate, introspective, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-secrets-revealed, identity-transformation, second-chance, sisters-bond
Setting: New York, Maryland
377 pages · Paperback · Atria