DupliKate Review

DupliKate by Cherry Cheva

Publisher: HarperTeen

Release date: September 29, 2009

Source: Borrowed from Katie

Other books by this author: She's So Money

To Do List:

· Ace SATs

· Ace finals

· Ace AP physics project

· Avoid murdering lab partner

· Submit Yale application

· Resolve possibly evil twin situation

Due date: December 15th
Countdown: 11 days

By the time Kate Larson accidentally fell asleep at three a.m., she'd already done more work in one night than the average high school senior does in a week. Getting into Yale has been her dream for years—and being generally overworked and totally under-rested is the price of admission. But when she opens her eyes the next day, she comes face-to-face with, well, her face—which is attached to her body, which is standing across the room. Wait, what?

Meet Kate's computer-generated twin. Kate doesn't know why she's here or how to put her back where she belongs, but she's real. And she's the last thing Kate has time to deal with right now. Unless . . .

Could having a double be the answer to Kate's prayers? After all, two Kates can do more work than one. Or will keeping her twin a secret turn her dream future into a living nightmare?

Review:

After reading Cherry Cheva’s debut novel, She’s So Money, and really enjoying it, I was looking forward to reading DupliKate. I was definitely not disappointed. It was funny and well written with a likable main character that many people could relate to. The plot was original and it really showed how Kate changed over the course of the story. She learned a lot about both herself and her future. Cheva was able to correctly describe a lot of the stress and work of high school, but Kate was definitely too stressed. She was a high school age work-a-holic. School, school, school that’s all Kate thought about she even abandoned her friends and boy friend. Kate was well developed, but I didn’t really know much about the other characters which was okay since they didn’t really play that big of a role. It mostly centered around Kate and her computer generated twin- Rina. Rina was a likable character and different from Kate in quite a few ways. Rina wanted to experience more of the fun part of life, so that worked out well for Kate when she wanted to stay home studying rather than go to the mall. I had a back and forth opinion of Rina, I liked her and didn’t like her. She did a complete spiral by the end of the novel and by then I didn’t really care for her. It was easy to see how having a twin could be helpful in Kate’s circumstance, but the problem was Rina wanted to have her own life, she wanted more from Kate than Kate was willing to hand over.

Romance wasn’t a big part of the novel, but Kate did have two love interests- Paul and Jake. I didn’t really like Paul that much- he was the perfect character, athletic, smart… he had everything and was even a shoe-in for Yale. He didn’t understand that getting A’s didn’t come as easily to Kate as they did to him. I really liked Jake though and was happy with the ending. Jake was able to open up Kate’s eyes to life and help her find herself. Kate’s mind was so focused on getting A’s and going to Yale with Paul that she let everything else take a back seat. It was good that Kate was ambitious and had her future so laid out, but the Yale dream wasn’t really her own. She got so caught up in Paul’s dreams that she forgot about her own. This underlying message in DupliKate was important and one that will make all high school students rethink their dreams and what they really want to do with their life. It’s important for school to be important in your life, but it also can’t control it. Friends and family should have just as big a role. All in all I would definitely recommend DupliKate, it’s laugh out loud funny, with an important message tied in. I’m looking forward to reading more by Cherry Cheva in the future.

I like the cover and the girls actually look like Kate. Their red dresses also stand out against the purple cover which is cool.

Overall: 4.5 out of 5 stars