After seeing Sarah Crossan at the Bath Children’s Literature Festival my sister Thalia was inspired to read her latest book, One. It sounded like such an interesting book that I decided to ask her a few questions to see what she thought about it.
Could you sum up the story for us?
Tippi and Grace are sixteen year-old conjoined twins who have been told that they can no longer be home-schooled due to financial problems. There is only one option – they must attend school for the very first time. Luckily when they arrive at school they meet Yasmeen and Jon, who soon become their best friends. When their health starts to fail they are forced to make the hardest decision of their lives.
One is written in verse – did you like it? Would you read another book in the same style?
I really liked the writing style as it made the story flow nicely at the same time as making you take your time reading the book. I don’t think that being written in free verse will put me off from reading a book.
The theme of the book is quite challenging and unique for teen fiction. How does the author handle it?
Before reading this book I didn’t know much about conjoined twins and by reading it I got to find out about the problems the twins face daily. It was obvious that a lot of research had gone into One because lots of scientific facts were included in the storyline.
The story is from Grace’s point of view – Did you see both of the girls as protagonists or did one have the leading voice?
As everything is from Grace’s point of view we only get to hear about her thoughts and feelings, so, for obvious reasons, I think that she has the leading voice. At some points in the book I almost forgot that they were conjoined because their personalities are so different. Because of this I think it would have been interesting to have an alternating point of view so we could read about Tippi’s thoughts alongside Grace’s.
I really enjoyed interviewing my sister! Her star rating – 5/5
Next review is going to be Hunger by Michael Grant, the second book in the Gone series.
Fiction for Teens 