A nice comfort read. Straight to the point and touching. ( )

A graphic novel about the surviving conjoined twin, the one pressured into the separation surgery by her dominating sister. Left with one leg and one arm she returns to the freak show her sister was so intent on escaping. Her sister, though dead is still with her and still deriding her choices. About having to live with the mistakes of others as well as our own and seeing the value and the hazards of the people around you. The art quite suits the story though some of the noses distracted me. ( )

Jane and Isabel are conjoined twins, joined at the torso and sharing an arm and a leg. They were sold at a young age to a circus sideshow, where the other performers have become a found family to them. But Jane, the more forceful personality of the two, dreams of a "normal" life. When an ambitious doctor proposes an operation that will separate the girls, Jane pressures Isabel into accepting. When Isabel awakes, she learns that Jane did not survive the surgery. Now she must find her own place in the world -- and, to top it off, she must wear prosthetics because Jane was the one with control of their shared limbs. Jane's still with her, though -- when you've been together all your life, can a little thing like death really separate you?

This historical graphic novel is based on the lives of similar conjoined twins, though Jane and Isabel are fictional characters. The illustrations are skillfully drawn and easy to "read" (said as someone who is much more text oriented and sometimes struggles to follow the story in graphic novels). It's a coming-of-age amidst tragedy story for Isabel, and manages to pack a novel's worth of story into the shorter graphic format. Graphic novel fans and those interested in sideshow history or conjoined twins should pick this one up. ( )

This graphic novel takes an interesting look at the world of carnival sideshows through the fictional story of two conjoined twins. When the twins risk being separated and one of them dies, can the remaining twin build a new life on her own, or will her sister's ghost haunt her forever? ( )