{Synopsis} – THE PARENT TRAP comes to the digital age!
When Ruth Quayle used a special app to search for pictures of herself online, she found dozens of images of “Ruth Quayle” — and one of “Ruby Starling.”
When Ruby Starling gets a message from a Ruth Quayle proclaiming them to be long-lost twin sisters, she doesn't know what to do with it — until another message arrives the day after, and another one. It could be a crazy stalker … but she and this Ruth do share a birthday, and a very distinctive ear….
Ruth is an extroverted American girl. Ruby is a shy English one. As they investigate the truth of their birth and the circumstances of their separation, they also share lives full of friends, family, and possible romances — and they realize they each may be the sister the other never knew she needed.
Written entirely in e-mails, letters, Tumblr entries, and movie scripts, FINDING RUBY STARLING is the funny and poignant companion to Karen Rivers's THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ME.
{My thoughts} – Forgiveness. This book is about a twelve year-old named Ruth Quayle and her journey to forgive herself and her birth mother for the events that have taken place during her life.
Ruth – She is a girl that loves to write poetry, has one true friend named Jedgar. She nearly died when she was a baby and had a heart transplant. She is adopted and her parents are a heart surgeon and a scientist. Her father loves pushing Buddhist thoughts onto her that make her think. She has a dog named Caleb and is very good at sculpting.
Ruby – Raised by her mother and nan. Her father died before she was born. She is good at drawing. She has friends but they are all older. She has a nan that passed away and a mother that has more or less checked out. She has a family in France that didn’t really accept her. She doesn’t know how to cope with things so she writes to her dead nan a lot.
Ruth decides that she wants to search the Internet to find all of her pictures to just sort of look at how much she has changed. Then she runs across photos of her that aren’t he and she determines she has a twin. She locates an email for Ruby and starts sending messages. At first Ruby doesn’t believe her and thinks it’s a stalking issue, but that isn’t the case at all. Eventually Ruby listens and they start to get to know one another.
This book is a roller coaster of emotions. Ruth is adopted and raised in America. Ruby was kept and raised in England. The story however, uncommon is one that many children who have been adopted can relate to. All of Ruth’s emotions towards Ruby and her biological mother are justified in the belief that she is unable to wrap her mind around the revelation in which her life has forever changed.
I can’t really relate to the adoption part of things, but I can relate to more or less being a loner as a child. Having a mother that had in fact checked out and being raised by my grandma. Reading this book made me realize that many of the issues I’d had as a child are issues that most children probably have faced, but when your the person facing it, it seems like your the only one ever to deal with it. This book appeals in that sort of manner. Ruth is so obsessed over the situation that she thinks it’s unreal and has never happened to anyone else aside from her and Ruby. It isn’t the case though. Adoptions happen all the time, finding your biological parents/family happens all the time, being the only child adopted out while mom raises the other, that however, I haven’t heard much of although I am sure it does happen more often then not.
Ruth struggles in this book with accepting who she is, who she is going to become and understanding why her life has turned out the way it has. Ruby is going through a similar struggle, but copes in a different manner. Both girls however, like to hide in small confined places in order to calm down when things are bothering them or if they are overwhelmed.
This was a wonderful book and I highly recommend it to any child that has been adopted, knows someone who has been adopted or is just interested in reading some well written realistic fiction.
