This book is a story about sisters, the relationship between twins and what drives them apart and pulls them back together again. This is my first book from this author, so I am not familiar with her writing style. I went into the read looking for a good mystery, but what I ended up with felt very disjointed. The mystery was only half of the book and once the mystery was discovered, everything wrapped up too neatly and too easily. One of my biggest pet peeves is when characters play detectives themselves and, upon finding crucial or critical evidence, tell no one and decide they are going to play hero, putting themselves in unrealistic situations. I enjoyed learning about Sam and Elli, their years as adolescent superstars, and who they came to be in their current predicaments, but I felt the character of Elli was not well developed. I felt the same about Sam and Elli's parents. There was also a character introduced in the first half of the novel that then disappeared and was never mentioned again. I appreciate what this novel was attempting to do and the premise was very exciting and ambitious, but overall this read fell flat for me.

Sam and Elli are identical twins that look so similar, they always been able to impersonate each other and fool just about anyone. But they don't want identical things out of life. When they are "discovered" at age 13 and become B-list child TV stars, it is Sam's dream they are living out. Elli just wants a normal life with marriage and kids. Now adults, Sam is trying to make her latest round of rehab "stick" when her parents call her for help. Sam and Elli haven't spoken since a falling out over a year ago, and Sam is surprised to learn that although Elli is getting a divorce, she has adopted a daughter, Charlotte, who she has left with her parents to go to a mysterious spa retreat in Ojai. They ask Sam to come help take care of Charlotte after Elli texts them to say she isn't coming home yet and subsequently fails to answer any calls or texts. Sam can't shake the feeling that something is very wrong, and when she tries to find out what's going on with her sister, she realizes that Elli's life has spun further out of control than she could have imagined. Clever and twisty with intriguing characters, the story is told from both sisters' points of view, in the present and at times in their past that have defined their relationship, personalities and character.

I’ll Be You, by Janelle Brown

Short Take: Confirmation that twins are creepy.

(*I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*)

Duckies, this week is a rough one. I’m semi-laid-up with a foot injury that’s been dragging on for three months, and I am also hosting a birthday party for the Junior Nerdling. So I am performing a delicate balancing act of alternating frantic house cleaning with leftover Easter candy and comfort TV. And one of the things I’m noticing is how many shows with young children have twins playing a single character.

Let me just say, it kind of freaks me out. Like, they are two people, but also one person, and it’s just plain weird. I can’t help but wonder how much therapy those kids may need as they become adults and try to establish their own identities, outside of both twinhood and whatever role they have become famous for. Growing up is hard enough without all that, right?

And that’s where we find Sam and Elli, identical twins who grew up on the set of a TV show where they shared a role, a career, a dressing room, and basically a single life. Of course they did the usual twin switcheroo thing on occasion, too, mastering it to the point that they could actually almost believe that they were the other person.

That is, until the show ended, and life happened, and Sam took the path of addiction and tabloid exploits, while Elli married a well-to-do, perfectly nice man, and adopted two-year-old Charlotte. In other words, suburban utopia.

Or not.

Sam has been sober for a year when her parents call her for help - Elli has dropped Charlotte off with them, checked into some kind of super-secret exclusive spa, and seemingly vanished off the face of the earth.

From there we follow Sam’s search for her sister, which of course leads to some very unexpected places.

My sweet nerdlings, this book was a lot of fun. Ms. Brown hits the sweet spot with pacing and dialogue, and I found Sam to be just messed-up enough to be believable without being a total downer.

The twin thing still weirds me out, though.

The Nerd’s Rating: FOUR HAPPY NEURONS (and some fancy coffee with a picture in the foam.)

Twin sisters become Hollywood's elite childhood actors. One catches the bug divulging in its many guilty pleasures while the other has run to the hills escaping the lifestyle.

Sam and Elli, once inseparable, are now estranged. Sam is finds herself questioning Elli's mysterious disappearance after returning home to help care for her young niece when her sister does not return from a women’s retreat. After more than two weeks, Elli takes matters into her own hands to find out what is going on at the gated commune where the women are held.

This story is broken into each sisters perspective, detailing how Elli landed in what is to be deemed a "cult” and how she came to adopt her daughter.

I'll Be You is Olsen twins meets NXIVM!
11 hr, 42 min audio was simply fantastic.

I read her book Pretty Things which was fantastic so I was so excited when I got the ARC from net galley for Janelle Brown's new book. It is about twin sisters Sam and Elli who were child actresses and very close. As adults Elli takes the more conventional route in life, getting married and seemingly having a stable life while Sam had drug issues, etc. The twins have not spoken in 378 days due to an argument till her mom calls her and tell her she needs her help. That Elli has left for some kind of retreat and her husband has divorced her and also they have been trying for years to get pregnant with negative results. Plus, Elli adopted a girl who is two years old now and left her with her mother who really finds it difficult at her age to care for the granddaughter. Thus the call to the sister who had no idea what was going on in Ellie's life. It appears that Ellie went on some retreat. Also Sam has been sober for over a year. This was really not a psychological thriller and to be honest I found after a point the book dragged on. Plus the fact, the retreat was a cult which I have a hard time reading about. For me. a book is one I can't put down. I saw that there were a lot of great reviews. There were some twists and some over the top things that are revealed. I received this book from net galley and the publisher as an ARC for an honest review.

I’LL BE YOU follows twin sisters and former child TV stars Sam & Elli in the aftermath of their young careers. Once inseparable, the sisters have grown apart in their post-Hollywood years. When Elli goes missing, Sam is determined to find her estranged sister.

Janelle Brown has a knack for writing well-drawn characters with motivations you can understand, even if you don’t agree with their actions. The author also raises some interesting questions about sisterhood bonds, childhood fame, and the lengths we go for family.

The story reads like an intriguing character study rather than a traditional domestic suspense or thriller with the bulk of the action occurring in the last 20% of the book. There were a few twists along the way, but I was fully invested into the complicated relationship of the sisters that I didn’t mind the slower pacing.

The audiobook was narrated by Julia Whalen (my all-time favorite!) as well as Kate Rudd. I loved that each sister had their own voice. The POVs switched infrequently which allowed me to become fully immersed in each sister’s distinct story.

RATING: 4/5
PUB DATE: April 26, 2022

Many thanks to @prhaudio, Random House, and NetGalley for an electronic ARC and audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Review will be posted to www.instagram.com/kellyhook.readsbooks on Monday 4/25

Wow this was a twist of a story. Sam and Elli are identical twins who get noticed at the tender age of nine by a talent agent. Sam was all for it while Elli, more reserved, was happy to do it but didn’t love it. Sam, who know is coming off benders and completing sobriety, sometimes wonders if they were never discovered. While she’s trying to pick her life back up her dad calls to say Elli hasn’t come back from a wellness retreat she took due to divorce. And with it the shocking news that Elli has a two year old they’d like help with. So Sam decides to find out what happened to her sister.

So many explosive truths come out and this book has kidnapping, cults, and two sisters who have a way of being each other. The author surprised me with some of the things that happened within this story and her way to weave what I’ve read just left me dumbfounded.

I throughly enjoyed this story and didn’t put it down!

I really enjoyed Pretty Things so I was looking forward to this one. And it did not disappoint. I had no idea it was so culty going in and I loved the cult vibes. Disliked how no one trusted the alcoholic and she relapsed without thought or feeling afterwards (10 months sober myself), so I wish some through was put into that. Or it could have been completely left out- there wasn't really a need for it. But other than that, I really liked the story, the twins, the cult.

Sam and Elli are identical twins 👯‍♀️ They are discovered in California when they are very young and start acting on a show together. That’s when they start trading places.

“I’ll be you.”

Sam struggles with addiction and loses everything. Elli marries well and has a nice house but struggles with infertility.
Something tears them apart as adults and after a year of not talking to each other Elli goes away to a self help retreat and does not come back. Sam is called to take care of her niece, Charlotte, whom she didn’t even know Elli had adopted. Is she really just taking time for herself or is she wrapped up in a cult?

A thriller this was not but it was very entertaining. I like the premise of twins and a cult storyline. I enjoyed getting both POVs of the twins and was really pulling for them. It’s much more a sister drama story but I flew through it. Cults completely freak me out and I cannot figure out how people get involved but Elli explains her involvement with the self help group fairly well.

Thanks to @netgalley and @randomhouse for the eARC for review.

Wow! Wow wow wow. This book blew me away. As a mother to twins the blurb already had me super intrigued but within a couple pages I felt drawn in by the writing and remained in that mindset for the entire book. Although this book is almost 400 pages it felt like a quick read!
Our story centers on identical twin sisters and former child stars, Elli and Sam. Now adults the twins are leading much different lives from one another, and all but completely estranged from each other and the lives they once knew. Despite their current differences, when one of them goes missing the twin bond and gut instinct is stronger than any other force.
This is my first Janelle Brown novel and I am so excited to go back and read some of her previous work. Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an ARC of this book. 4 stars.

Ellie and Sam are identical twins. After a life in the spotlight as child actors, they have taken very different paths. Sam continued with an acting career, and got a life of addiction and sub-par roles instead, and Ellie chose domestic life, getting married and trying for a baby. Sam and Ellie hadn't talked in over a year, when Ellie disappears. Their parents call Sam home to help take care of Charlotte, Ellie's adopted daughter. When Sam begins to sense that something else is amiss, she begins to dig into Ellie's activities for the past year, and finds a lot more than she bargained for.

This book was fascinating and I found so many parallels to "ripped from the headlines" stories about cults and, in particular the Scientologists. That really kept me interested in the book, and made me feel engaged with the characters. The first section of the book is told from Sam's point of view, and Ellie's point of view comes in the middle. It was nice to see both sides of the story, and have the story told by both sisters. I thought the characters were easy to relate to, and I'm always in for a good twin story!

Thank you to the author, publisher and Net Galley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!!!

This novel is about identical twins Sam and Elli. As adults, Sam has been something of the “bad twin” struggling with addiction, and when the book starts, Sam hasn’t talked to Elli in more than a year when their parents call her home to help with the adopted daughter she didn’t even know Elli had, because Elli left her daughter to go to a retreat and hasn’t come back. Sam deals with the issues going home brings up, and begins to search for Elli, interspersed with flashbacks to their younger days as child/teen actors.

Like Janelle Brown’s last two books Watch Me Disappear and Pretty Things, this book isn’t really a thriller - more character study with an undercurrent of slow burn suspense. And like those books, it’s also a really good read!

Sam and Elli are twins that have been inseparable since birth. Elli is shy, quiet, and reserved while Sam is bold, loud, and outgoing. At nine years old, they become child stars on a hit tv show.

But what happens when stardom isn't what one of the twins wants anymore? Does she suck it up to make her sister happy? Or does her sister give up her dream of fame? What happens when twins are no longer inseparable and want different things from life? What happens when one of them ends up in a self-help group that could possibly be a cult? Can the sisters save each other? Will their choices drive a wedge between them or make their bond stronger than ever?

I really liked the alternating timelines in this story. I was more inclined to be immersed in the "now" chapters instead of the "then" chapters, but the alternating worked really well and helped progress the story. I think the majority of the book was told from Sam's point of view, which also moved the story along because she is the bold, more outgoing twin. I really enjoyed Sam's character even though I did not love most of her choices. Elli's character was very naïve and made some awfully dumb and infuriating choices, and I had a hard time connecting with her. I found myself gritting my teeth and grunting in anger at almost everything Elli did.

I don't want to say too much more because I think that everything I want to expand on would be even a minor spoiler. But overall I liked the book well enough. I thought the ending was a little rushed and unfinished, and it almost felt like a cop-out. (But remember, I rarely like book endings, so take my opinion on the ending with a grain of salt.) I wish some of the relationships in the book were expanded on more, and some of the mundane, repetitive middle was focused elsewhere. So, 3 stars from me. Not my favorite Janelle Brown book, but it was still good and there was a lot that I did like about it. I don't know that I would consider it a thriller though, it felt more like a family drama to me. Anyway, give it a shot because it is still a book I'm glad I read.

This book had a ton of potential to be super creepy and tense. Identical twins Sam and Elli are former child actresses who each find themselves on a separate path to self destruction. Not surprisingly, Sam turns into an addict and Elli leads a predictable wealthy suburban lifestyle until she joins a creepy “self help” group to fill a void in her life. Elli goes MIA and only her screw up sister can save her. Unfortunately, the way the story is told tames the suspense, taking out any thrilling or even mysterious elements that are inherent in the plot line. The reader is never really worried about Elli or Sam as much of the story is told after the tense event has already been resolved or, if revealed in real time, is released so quickly that the reader didn’t even have a chance to wonder what happened or to imagine more perilous ends for the characters. The writing tone is calm and matter of fact and while there’s nothing wrong with that, I generally want my thrillers to scare me a little, especially when dealing with unpredictable addicts or brainwashing cults. Overall, I enjoyed the story but wanted more tension. This would be a good choice for readers looking to tip their toes in the thriller genre and don’t want anything gory, triggering, scary, or twisty.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I'll Be You is the first book I've read by Janelle Brown. The cover drew me in and the fact that this book was about twin sisters. Twins fascinate me! Janelle Brown's writing was gripping and I wasn't able to put this book down! I loved the alternating POV between Elli and Sam. I enjoyed how the book took us back to when they were teenagers and then to the present as adults. I loved the twists and turns, the slow burn, and the drama-filled wild ride I was on while reading this book! Both Elli and Sam were such well-developed characters. I'm looking forward to reading Janelle Brown's other books!

The first half seemed long, the second rushed. There's so much going on here. A few of the points in the addiction storyline gave me great pause given my personal knowledge of and interaction with addiction and recovery, and that was a little hard for me to get over. Not all people recover the same is basically the point to remember going in.

While both twins are flawed, it's not hard to root for them, which made me want to like the book more than I did. Great potential.

Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book wasn't really what I expected, but I'm also not exactly sure what I expected other than twins. I really enjoyed the author's writing style and the way the story unfolded.

We meet Sam and Elli, twin sisters, at a young age. They spend a lot of their lives swapping roles, or doing "I'll be you" at first I think for fun, and later as a way to help each other out of situations.

They are discovered on the beach ad start acting, sharing the role of a girl popular television show (think Olson Twins on Full House). Sam lives for the spotlight and acting becomes her life. Elli is more shy and doesn't love it, and longs to return back to their normal life. Sam picks up on this and starts offering the familiar "I'll be you" and swaps roles with Elli to be the one doing all the acting.

They grow up, each woman having issues of their own, and something happens to fracture their relationship, and they don't speak for over a year. Then Sam receives a call from their parents asking for her help - Elli has gone away to deal with emotions in life, including her divorce, and the parents are watching her daughgter - wait, "DAUGHTER!" thinks Sam, and need some help.

When Elli doesn't return as expected, and then doesn't respond to texts and calls from Sam, she wonders if there is more going on than meets the eye. She takes it upon herself to investigate and finds things aren't at all what they seem.

Cults play a part in the storyline, specifically on disgusing itself as a female empowerment group. I felt like it was well done and was an integral part of the storyline. I enjoyed this story and will definitely be looking for more books by this author in the future.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for letting me read this book. I love reading books about twins and what they get themselves into, good or bad.

Elli & Sam are identical twins who were always close until their child acting career and Sam’s addictions started to create a wedge between them. Sam has been estranged from Elli for over a year when she receives a phone call from her father that her mother needs help with Elli’s newly adopted toddler daughter. Elli left them with the baby weeks ago, and has only contacted them through a single text message since. Sam knows she has to find out where her twin is and what kind of mess she is in, even if no one else is willing to do it.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book and how realistic it felt to me. The characters were so fully developed and I loved how it was split into three very clear parts between the sisters. Elli’s part was definitely crucial to the story. The depiction of cults and addiction were very well done, and I felt as though the author researched these topics and made sure they were accurately portrayed. There were also a few times where the author used words that I didn’t know and I absolutely love picking up on new vocabulary. Thanks to @randomhouseca and @netgalley for my review copies. I would definitely read another book by this author.

Don’t even think about starting this book if you have a deadline or any important items on your ‘to-do’ list. From the first page, I was caught up in this story and could not put it down. In the thriller I’LL BE YOU, Janelle Brown took me back to adolescence days when my favorite books were about twins, especially those mischievous ones who delighted in switching places and fooling everyone. And with that tempting and familiar hook, the author added some key twists: a missing twin, the kidnapping of a baby, and the involvement of a feminist cult. Over and over, with the words “I’ll be you,” identical twins Elli and Sam kept the story moving. There are a host of unique and believable characters, each with his or her own personal defect. Thank you, Janelle Brown, for an entertaining and engaging read. Appreciation to Netgalley and Random House for the ARC. Publication date is April 26, 2022.