Review: Dead Ringer by Nicola Martin

DEAD RINGER

by Nicola Martin

Contraband

YA Thriller

320 pages

Get ready to meet the other you.

Just upload your photo to get started. Using the latest facial recognition software, plus your votes, MeetYourDouble will find your doppelganger.

START NOW.

The idea is simple, vain, exciting. Tap the app, upload a picture, find your #deadringer – and if you like, set up a meeting in real life.

When Ella and Jem connect, the resemblance is uncanny, but their lives are polar opposites. One is stagnating in her Northern hometown, while the other, an aspiring actress living in a multimillion-pound mansion, is a Chelsea socialite who knows she’s skating on thin ice.

Other than their looks, their only similarity is the desire to escape. Is it possible to hide in your double’s skin? And at what cost? Dead Ringer is an all-too-believable, twisty, compelling story that will leave you reeling.

MY TIDBITS

Starting out with two girls with very different problems and lives, this slides into a tension-packed ride, which grabs until the last page.

Elle and Jem meet over an app, which claims to find your doppelganger. And it works—at least, for these two. While they look uncannily similar, their lives are polar opposites in every way. Elle soon wishes she had a different life, where Jem's desire to suddenly switch comes after an incident, which has her wanting to flee. But switching lives is more than just looking alike...especially this time.

The idea of two people, who look alike, switching places is nothing new. Yet, this book does a fairly good job at bringing it over more convincingly than is often the case. First, the reader gets to know both young women a little, as the book switches from one POV to the other. The personalities are very different, but each is likable and easy to connect to in their own way. To make it even more believable, the two actually don't look one hundred percent alike, and there are some who notice the difference.

The pacing is well done. While the thriller, high-tension side doesn't come in right away...which I appreciated...there is the slight hum of something dark hanging in the background. It's exactly this which hooks in and creates an interesting read.



And here she is...

Nicola Martin lives and works in Bristol. She studied literature at the University of East Anglia and the University of California, Berkeley. (from Goodreads)