One for the money. Two for the show.

The Opposite of Me

Sarah Pekkanen

Last week I did something I never do: I bought a book simply based on a quote on the front cover. I didn't even read the back. "Fresh and funny and satisfying," said the blurb by Jennifer Weiner, and that was good enough for me.

The Opposite of Me is Pekkanen's (love that last name by the way--it sounds like an epithet! "My professor had three questions about collateral habeas on the exam! PEKKANEN!") debut novel, told from the point of view of Lindsey Rose. Lindsey is on the cusp of being named creative director of her Manhattan advertising agency at the tender age of twenty-nine. But in the course of one single day, her hopes and plans for her future are dashed, and she is forced to return to her parents' home in Maryland. And once there, smart, successful Lindsey falls back into the shadow of her hauntingly beautiful and charismatic fraternal twin sister Alex. Lindsey's accomplishments seem to matter nothing in the face of Alex's beauty. In the blink of an eye, Lindsey is back playing the role of the boring, dowdy twin.

But then Lindsey discovers a long-kept secret about her and her sister's identities. Now she's questioning everything: is she living the life that she was meant to have? Or is Alex living the one that was supposed to belong to Lindsey? Which matters more: how others view you, or how you view yourself? And can she ever go back and rebuild her broken relationship with her twin?

While I was reading the book, I kept thinking back to the Weiner quote, and finally I decided it was spot on: The Opposite of Me was satisfying. It's the perfect word for this book. Lately I've been champing at the bit, waiting for Weiner and Emily Giffin and Sophie Kinsella's new books to be released later in the year. The Opposite of Me filled the gap and bided the time perfectly. It's chick-lit with a heart, and a brain, and that's nice. The perfect balance of clothes and makeup and goopy love and real issues, honest relationships, and tearjerking memories. I was able to immediately identify with Lindsey, without ever seeing Alex as a villain. Some of the tropes featured are worn a little thin--one beautiful and charismatic twin, one staid and steady twin?--but they're comfortable, at least, like a pair of old sweatpants you can't wear out of the house and can't give up.

At least nobody got date raped. Or shipwrecked. Or kidnapped by a cult.

All the same, satisfying isn't necessarily the word you want people to use about your first novel. Because it doesn't always carry the best implications. Do you know what I find satisfying? My most satisfying comfort food? It's a packet of Lipton noodle soup, the goopy, bright yellow kind, with extra spaghetti noodles thrown in along with a can of corn. Nobody would call it amazing, or delectable, or eye-opening. It's not sunchoke veloute pinenut sabayon. It's noodles. And noodles are fine. But they aren't stupendous.

I eat my noodle dish--my sister calls it my "special soup"--when I'm feeling sick. It is the #1 most amazing home-with-the-flu meal. And this book, like that soup, might be one of those great books to read when you have a stomach virus, a temperature of 104 degrees, because like noodles from a packet, it demands nothing from you. Everything we are supposed to think and feel about the sisters is explained to us in pretty clear and unambiguous terms. You never have to make a complicated judgment. You never have to infer, or read between the lines. I'm not saying it's stupid, because it isn't--Pekkanen is smart enough--but it is easy. And again, that's not necessarily dispositive: easy can be a good thing. "Easy chair," for instance. "Easy on the eyes." "Easy like Sunday Morning." (YES, I am a Commodores fan. SUE ME.)

And I think that basically what it boils down to is a failure of confidence. This is Pekkanen's first novel. It figures she might be a little tentative, a little unwilling to take risks, with her first. She knows that those of us who read this genre are spoiled. She has big shoes to fill. She has to win us over first. And The Opposite of Me is so promising, so easy in the right way that it makes me hopeful that Pekkanen will find her groove and her voice, eventually. And she'll be able to take us there because we'll trust her, and we'll know she can do it successfully.

I am already looking forward to that next book, and I think that Pekkanen (SERIOUSLY, what a great name!) is definitely one to watch.

Rating: 3 of 5 stars