Friday Memes: One by Sarah Crossen

Book Beginnings is hosted by Rose City Reader and Friday 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice.

One by Sarah Crossan. 391 p. Greenwillow Books/ HarperCollins Publishers, September, 2015. 780062118752.

Publisher synopsis: Tippi and Grace share everything—clothes, friends . . . even their body. Writing in free verse, Sarah Crossan tells the sensitive and moving story of conjoined twin sisters, which will find fans in readers of Gayle Forman, Jodi Picoult, and Jandy Nelson.

Tippi and Grace. Grace and Tippi. For them, it's normal to step into the same skirt. To hook their arms around each other for balance. To fall asleep listening to the other breathing. To share. And to keep some things private. Each of the sixteen-year-old girls has her own head, heart, and two arms, but at the belly, they join. And they are happy, never wanting to risk the dangerous separation surgery.

But the girls' body is beginning to fight against them. And Grace doesn't want to admit it. Not even to Tippi. How long can they hide from the truth—how long before they must face the most impossible choice of their lives?

Carnegie Medal–nominated author Sarah Crossan gives us a story about unbreakable bonds, hope, loss, and the lengths we will go to for the person we love most.

First line: Since this is a novel in verse, I will post the first poem:

Sisters

Here
                      We Are.

And we are living.

Isn't that amazing?

How we manage
to be
at all.

Pages 56/57:

The Cafeteria

As we enter the cafeteria,
Yasmeen and Jon
dance around us,
                  one in front
one behind
so we are no
                  quite
                  seen.

Mom, Dad, Dragon, and Grammie
have been doing this for years,
hiding
us
as best they can
from ridicule
and camera phones,
because there's nothing worse
than a click-click-click
and knowing that in seconds
you'll be famous via
someone else's social feed.

We order chipboard pizza,
a Sprite with two straws,
and sit
                     at a corner table
                     with Yasmeen and Job
talking over
other voices and clinking cutlery,
not about how we live
                    -the logistics of conjoined pissing-
(which is how I thought the whole day would be)
but about movies
and music
and books
and beer
and the new school year
and the islands of Greece
and coral reefs
and our favorite cereals
and Satan.

We have perfectly silly conversations
and by the time the bell rings
I am starting to wonder-
have we
found ourselves
                two friends?