CROSSAN, Sarah

Grace and Tippi are conjoined twins—sisters “literally joined / at the hip— / united in blood and bone.” They’ve spent most of their precarious lives being home-schooled, but family finances necessitate that the girls now attend a traditional (if private) high school. Grace, the more bookish, romantic twin, narrates this transition in spare, fluid free verse. Her worries about public ridicule and smart-phone cameras don’t go entirely unfounded at ritzy Hornbeacon High, but not everyone pities or derides her. A pair of best friends—pink-haired, HIV-positive Yasmeen and dreamy, tattooed Jon—see Tippi and Grace as distinct and interesting individuals. The relationships that form among the foursome are earnest and tender, especially between Grace and Jon. Crossan presents their maybe-romance and other delicate situations with the utmost sensitivity, allowing Grace and Tippi to negotiate the changing boundaries of their physical and emotional connection gradually and without sensationalism. Through her understated, evocative narration, Grace’s coming of age becomes a meditation on difference, a celebration of the deepest bonds of sisterhood, and—when the girls receive a life-changing diagnosis—a stirring tragedy. Grace’s uniquely moving “story of how it is to be Two” will inspire compassion