The Other Twin

by Bruce Richards

Struggling in her popular twin sister's shadow, Julie Babbitt is thrilled when she is asked out by handsome Loren Maddux, but Delia vows that if she cannot have Julie's boyfriend, neither can Julie.

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Pastel Paperback]

A really meandering and boring, almost borderline nonsensical Z*Fave. I'm not having much luck with these titles I've been dying to read and finally getting my hands on.

[Matthew MacIntyre]

Barely three stars. And I mean barely. This book is another one of the Zfaves that would have been a nightmare club if that series had continued. The story is heavily relied on the Night Owl club with ninety percent of the story taking place there. Also the book takes place over the span of two days, with a little part talking about two weeks prior and the last chapter being a month later. We follow Loren who at the start of the book is dealing with the suicide of is ex girlfriend Sue who killed herself immediately after Loren broke up with her during their date at the club. She shot herself in one of the upstairs rooms. It’s two weeks later and Loren wakes up to see someone who looks like Sue outside his house. He follows her and as he’s speeding hits her standing in the road. He leaves when he sees a guy Duke put her body in the back of his car, her leg falling off and he just picks it up and throws it in the trunk. (It’s obvious that he hit a mannequin, that just looks exactly like Sue). Once at the club he sees Duke and Donna (Sue’s twin) so he realizes they are just getting back at him. Also at the club he meets Julie and is instantly attracted to her beauty. This book is very confusing and kinda dumb. Julie tells him her family moved to town so her twin sister Delia can go to the riding academy. It’s mentioned that Delia steals all of Julie’s exes and that one time their parents told Julie that Delia was their favorite not knowing they were speaking to Julia. Also that room where Sue killed herself well that was the twin room (of course it is) back when it was a orphanage a set of twins were there and one died and killed her sisters bf, Rory, and the other was sent to an insane asylum. This book has so many convoluted plots. *spoliers* Loren was also a twin and he is the ancestor of Rory and the insane twin, who is also related to the ancestors of Julie and Delia. It turns out Julie also killed Delia and was crazy at switched between normal(Julie) and crazy(Delia) by there clothes she wore. Delia kills guys with blue eyes and puts them in a jar. She kills a couple guys this book including Duke. The end takes place in the twin room where Loren is there with Delia(crazy Julie) where all the dead twins try to keep him in that room. At the last moment Jenny Demos (the club owner) pulls him out saying some foreign language to subdue the spirits. One month forward Loren is in counseling he says Delia was dead in the room and we find out Donna died in a car crash and Julie was writing to Loren from the insane asylum signing every letter as Delia and when he stopped responding she hung herself. The ending is Loren driving to the sight of Donna’s accident where her car is still crashed off the cliff and as he’s driving in the background is that same car. Like this book wants to be so much. A tragic love story. A ghost story. None of it makes sense. And it kind of sucks because I believe this is the last “Nightmare Club” book. There were so many bad books in this series though.

[Paul Kim]

Too disoriented for me.

Summary: Loren Maddux is struggling to overcome his grief over girlfriend’s suicide and from the hatred against him from his peers who thought the girl’s suicide was his fault. He then meets the new girl, Julie Babbitt, who seems interested in him and Loren is interested in her as well. Unbeknownst, Loren doesn’t relax Julie has a twin sister who seems interested in him too but is also dangerous enough take his life. Loren also experienced strange events that seem to point to his girlfriend’s death and the upstairs room of the club she’s killed in, the Twins Room

Before I discuss this book, I want to point the book’s setting is the same as The Nightmare Club series, YA horror series that tried to emulate Fear Street style for cash. I read some of the books but I don’t recall details for what the setting is like. All I know is that there’s military school for boys only, a public high school called Cooper High, and a riding academy for girls only.

Now for the club itself, it’s called Night Owl club and the owners Jake Demos and his daughter Jenny Demos are mentioned in the books. Jenny Demos appeared to be benevolent for the main characters in these books and the main characters seem to open up to her. There’s not much else I can say about this setting but I’ll tried to explain more if I continue to read more books. However, this book doesn’t have the label and logo to show it’s part of the series and I do wonder why.

Okay now for the book, the book’s plot just feels like mish mash of events strung together that I sometimes forget what the book is about sometimes. I rather enjoy horror books with plots that’s clear so I can understand what’s there to fear and maybe I can reread them without any stress.

It doesn’t help how the book seems to have separate plots from the supernatural to evil twin plot which further the problem of not understanding the focus of the book.

Second main problem I have with the book are the characters. At first, I can sympathize with his plight dealing with wrong accusations or grief but he’s unlikable. So his girlfriend dies two weeks ago and already he’s planning to date with the new girl, Julie and when he saw that the bully ran over the girl, he plans to incriminate him for that. Great character this guy is.

The other character, Julie Babbitt, is meh. I’ve seen similar plots of how one sibling gets the attention while the other sibling. I guess the character’s relatable for those who have siblings but she’s bland since her thoughts consist of rant on Delia throughout the book. One of her hobbies appeared to be dealing with automobile engine. I’m typing this because it seems Julie appears to be tomboyish based on her style and her hobby which she doesn’t exhibit in the book but through naming cars. Perhaps if that’s explored more, it could give make her less typical than teenage female characters of YA horror.
There’s more to her but I’m not going to spoil it and it doesn’t change my view of her as being bland.

For scares, it’s all pretty standard. Gore is mentioned but not in details and it’s not too scary. I actually thought the supernatural parts were slightly more suspenseful than the slasher twin part.

Now this book does keep me reading this book as the mystery (that I least understand) of this book is actually interesting as just how bizarre this books is but it doesn’t justify that the book feels plotless and confusing, especially with details that seem to be important to plot but really not.

I don’t recommend this book.