This was a very interesting book about identity and sharing. I liked how Blanche gradually woke up and how Nora learned the truth about their past. ( )

Like many oh-so-cool heavy novels, Half Life by Shelley Jackson follows a twenty-something drifter who doesn’t know who she is, guys. She’s trying to find herself as an individual. You know, figure out who she is, and all that navel-gazing crap that twenty-somethings are wont to do.

Of course, Nora’s navel-gazing is a wee bit complicated by the fact that she has two heads. One of which belongs to her twin sister, Blanche.......

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WHEN TO READ: This one’s a heavy, with lots of little postmodern tricks toward the end. I recommend this one for family holidays, when you need an entire tome to escape into, but only have room in your carry-on for a paperback.

NOT IN THE MOOD? Go for The God of Small Things. It’s hardly meta at all, but deals with the same type of identity politics, sibling/family relationships and has a few twists. The God of Small Things is Half Life for the mainstream — no big sweeping metaphors establishing the premise (such as an entire race of conjoined twins, for example), little toe dips into experimenting with the craft of writing — but it’s highly enjoyable while remaining a respectable, intellectual read.

GOOD FOR: Underrepresented groups of people, navel-gazing twenty-somethings, snobbish hipster types (those last two might be the same thing).

As this book deals with planning the murder of one’s sibling, it’s probably not a good gift choice for pro-lifers.

PERTINENT INFO: 440 pages. This is one where you’re best reading in as few sittings as possible — wait too long and you completely lose where you are. First 75 percent goes fast, last 25 percent a bit sluggish.

AUTHOR FACT: Shelley once published a story solely through the use of tattoos on willing volunteers. This story is so old it should be collecting social security, but its celebrity keeps dragging on. Kind of like Casey Kasem. ( )

The premise was interesting--the twofer population, what happens when your sister is rightthere. Some of the stories of their childhood were repulsive--I was actually nauseated and would have to put the book down. Towards the end, the main character, Nora, seems to be going through some kind of mental breakdown and frankly, I felt like I was having one too, and I do not read to feel insane. It hurt my brain a little. ( )

I found this book unusual and intriguing until the ending. I enjoy a good surreal mind bender. And this book certainly came through. The plot was non-linear and the readers was forced to extract reality from hallucination in an alternate reality setting. I really liked the reality of the conjoined twin world from their status as a minority group to the social, political, and economic ramifications of such a group. From two hooded hoodies to the argument of plane fare and the impact on the criminal justice system. Even romantic relationships take on a very complex structure.

That said, she makes the moral of the story a little too plain and ties up the book in a neat little package of metaphors at the end. As if I couldn't figure out on my own that the battle between two drastically different conjoined twins is actually a metaphor for the battle of one's own dark and light sides.

Overall I liked the book. I just tend to get put off when an author begins to preach to me. ( )

I really should have known better than to pick up a book by an author whose last major work was “published in tattoos on the skin of nearly three thousand volunteers.” But I was intrigued by the premise. In an alternate timeline, apparently, to our own, the aftermath of nuclear testing has led to the birth of large numbers of “twofers”—conjoined twins with only one body, but two heads on top of its shoulders. Nora, one such person, hears rumors of a doctor who is willing to surgically remove one of the heads, and wants to remove Blanche, who has been asleep for fifteen years.
Sound interesting? It only sounds that way. The book is surreal to the point of incoherence. In between what else happens, we’re subjected to recollections of their rather disgusting childhood (on the whole, there’s too much off-putting body-related language in the book), and Nora seems to be having hallucinations. Finally, she shuts up her head in a dollhouse that belongs to the family and has been featuring prominently in the story.
I don’t mean to be a lazy reader who can’t tolerate any ambiguity or odd moments. But I feel that those pages should be a minority in a good book. Storytelling should come first. I am much more willing to wrestle with a difficult bit if I have something to work with. ( )