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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780743428620
ISBN number: 0743428625
Label: Pocket Star
Manufacturer: Pocket Star
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 432
Printing Date: 2004-03
Publishing house: Pocket Star
Release Date: March 30, 2004
Sale Popularity Level: 285627
Studio: Pocket Star
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Product Description:
He was her mirror image. Now the mirror has cracked.
Celeste and her twin brother, Noble, are as close as can be -- until a tragic accident takes Noble's life. It's a loss that pushes their mother, a woman obsessed with New Age superstitions, over the edge....
Desperate to keep her son 'alive,' Celeste's mother forces her to cut her hair, wear boys' clothes, and take on Noble's identity. Celeste has virtually disappeared -- until a handsome boy moves in subsequent door, and Celeste will risk her mother's wrath to let herself come back to life.
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Rated by buyers 
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This series made no sense to me. The premise of twins with 'gifts' was a interesting one, but not appropriate for the VCA genre.
This book/series bothered me in so many ways. NO reason is given for Mom's obsessive preference over Noble. She doesn't explain or give any indication as to why Noble is her valued child, even though his 'gifts' are apparently lacking. The preference for Noble is so obvious, and when Celeste is forced to assume his role, that really goes too far. After Celeste had to assume his role, the story only spun into more silliness and implausibility. I just wanted to shake everyone in this story. Why didn't Celeste run away and get help? Why didn't she stand up to her rapist? Why didn't she insist that she was Celeste?
This book was just filled with holes and poor writing, and I am ashamed that this was published under Miss Andrew's name. Neiderman should just publish these under his own name!
Rated by buyers -
After reading reviews on here, I decided to give this book a shot. I just finished reading it and I am surprised that I was able to even get through it. The book is very flat and repetitive, the same thing happening over and over and over. It was also quite predictible, which makes the book even that much more boring. I have read other books by VC Andres and was impressed, but this was just a complete disappointment and waste of time.
Rated by buyers 
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Celeste inaugurates the beginning of the Gemini Series by author Virginia Andrews, who is known for her dark and twisted stories about strange families and the evil secrets that lurk in their every corner. As twins, Celeste and Noble are inseparable but only Noble is the favored child of their superstitious mother, who insists that Noble will be the one to `cross over' and speak to the spirits of their ancestors. When Celeste begins to show signs that she is, in fact, the `chosen' one for the spirits to connect with, Noble gets agitated and rebels. In a freak accident that shatters their mother, Noble dies and Celeste is forced to resume her dead brother's identity and watch helplessly as her mother buries `Celeste' six feet underground. For years, Celeste becomes Noble, the son her mother is obsessed with, although she cannot ignore the changes in her body or the womanly yearnings that are screaming to get out. When Elliot Fletcher moves subsequent door, Celeste finds herself pulled into a vortex of desire she finds both addictive and repulsive until events start spiraling out of her control. Slow paced and disturbing, the concept of the book is really not so unrealistic. Insane mother loses her beloved son, and gets his sibling to pretend to be him. It has been done before. But as always the case with books by this author, the pages gives you a sense of frustration and phobia as you watch a perfectly normal little girl doing all she can to please her psychopathic mother at the expense of her own sanity. We whimper when we see her unwittingly fall victim to the cruelty of others who are more experienced and not as naïve as she is, when she is forced to succumb to `blackmail' just to protect her mother who was ultimately her own destroyer. For those who are used to VC Andrews's style, you will find similarities that are akin to her previous books. But don't be Mr/Miss Know It All just yet, because unlike the beautiful heroines in her other books, Celeste was not swept off her feet by true love. Those who are as `dark and twisty' as Dr Meredith Grey on Grey's Anatomy will find themselves drawn to VC's books for the simple reason it will make them breathe a sigh of relief that their lives are not so warped.
Rated by buyers 
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I can see why some people find this book tedious or difficult to believe, but that is precisely the reality of someone who has been seriously emotionally abused, which I know from my own experience. To be in a rigidly circumscribed world in which you are invisible to your so-called family, your only purpose being to make others comfortable and never ever to possess needs, opinions, or desires of your own, is indeed a tedious and laborious existence. But it's so important that more people learn that this is exactly the experience of many people.
In this day and age of burgeoning memoirs on physical and sexual abuse, I'm gratified that a few are beginning to deal with emotional abuse--not as sensational, and harder to credit with the seriousness that physical and sexual abuse receive more easily, emotional abuse is easy to scoff at. But it's real. The ghost writer of this novel by "V.C. Andrews" really knows deeply and empathetically what she or he has written about. The inability of Celeste to recognize how she's being mistreated, to come up with alternatives or escape plans, or to resist her mother's poisoning of her worldview, are very real patterns of thought and behavior to someone raised in a warped, rigidly defined society or subculture. I've been raised in several of these, simultaneously.
Less abstractly, the book is well written, vivid, well characterized (Noble and Elliot are very recognizable and different little boys, and the dad is wonderful), and emotionally very believable. It does give you a sense of frustration and claustrophobia, but that is necessary to convey Celeste's grey hole of an existence. I have a few plot quibbles, and get irritated at the many typos, but I do recommend the story to anyone interested in an emotionally provocative story that will deepen your understanding of how children form a sense of self and identity, and what happens when you're not allowed to.
Rated by buyers -
I've read all of this author's books and this one was just plain bad, dumb, and stupid. I tried to read the subsequent in the series but knew it wasn't going to get any better. I generally enjoy these stories but this one was very tiresome and idiotic.
Save your money for something better.
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