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Imagine you were thirty five years old and suddenly discovered you had an identical twin. That's what happened to Elyse Schein, a filmmaker living in Paris. Elyse had always known she was adopted, but when she decided to search for her birthmother, she learned instead she was born one of two identical twins.

Despite her initial shock upon discovering she's a twin, Elyse is thrilled to discover she has a sister. She's always felt someone or something was missing and learning she's one of two makes complete sense to her. When the adoption agency locates Elyse's twin sister, however, she--Paula Bernstein--is more ambivalent about being found.

Told in alternating first-person accounts, Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited is a fascinating exploration of twinship, adoption, and identity. Elyse and Paula discover they share much in common, despite the fact they were raised separately without any knowledge of the other's existence. They both write about film, they love the same movies, they both suffered from depression in college. What the reader learns when considering Paula and Elyse's stories is how truly different they are from one other. Elyse is more adventurous and open than her twin. But, Elyse, who has suffered more loss (the death of her adoptive mother, for example), seems needier than Paula. Paula is cagier than Elyse and protective of the life she has forged as a journalist, wife, and mother. Their unique voices and personalities demonstrate that identical DNA at birth only means so much. Nature vs. nurture? More like nature and nurture.

Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited is also a detective story. Paula and Elyse not only attempt to learn more about their birthmother, but they also take on the adoption agency in the hopes of discovering why they were separated and adopted out to separate families. The truth--a psychological "study"--is difficult for Paula, Elyse, and the reader to accept.

Identical Strangers is a compelling read and one teens might enjoy given its necessary focus on identity, adoption, and family.
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For more on Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein's memoir, check out this episode of Talk of the Nation.

Koren Zailckas's Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood was released last year amidst a great deal of noise and fanfare. A memoir that chronicles Zailckas's adventures with alcohol from age 14 to young adulthood, Smashed necessarily inspired endless "lifestyle" stories about girls drinking to excess in the nation's newspapers. I am happy I waited a year to read it, because I now could appreciate Smashed as an individual title and its worth as a crossover title for the Young Adult market.

Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood begins with Zailckas's first drinking episode and continues to cover each successive bender in mortifying and depressing detail. An early drinking bout ends in alcohol poisoning, another in, perhaps, unintended sexual intercourse. Zailckas describes a youth devoted to and obliterated by drinking. And, she shows she's not alone. Her friends--in high school, in college, and after--live similar lives and together they share friendships forged from and cemented with alcohol.

Zailckas blames her alcohol abuse on deep feelings of insecurity and social anxiety. She also claims she was not an alcoholic, but, rather, an alcohol abuser. I am sure more than a few addiction specialists would disagree with her, but, in the end, her definitions are not that important to her story. What is important is that Zailckas writes well enough to tell a compelling tale, one you follow even when you want to smack the storyteller and tell her to grow up. Zailckas's prose is, in fact, so elegant, so poetic, that I hope she turns to fiction in the future. (Zailckas is a dab hand at the unexpected and beautiful metaphor.)

Zailckas's conclusion to Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood is particularly successful. (Though quite a few Amazon reviewers disagree with me.) She links girlhood drinking to feminist concerns, including and not limited to deceptive and sexist advertising campaigns, frat boy behavior, and, most importantly, girls' tendency to swallow their anger instead of expressing it openly. It's a worthy and lucid feminist rant, one that had me shouting "sing it, sister!" from the beginning.

So, is Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood a crossover title? Is it suitable for teen readers? Definitely. In fact, I'd recommend Smashed to teens ages 14 and up. It's a cautionary tale, though, so I'd leave it lying around the house instead of handing it over them directly. The cover alone is enough to attract their attention.