Customer Reviews

Indivisible by Two: Lives of Extraordinary Twins

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

The twins, triplets and quadruplets profiled here are fascinating. There are all kinds of interesting situations written about---twins seperated at birth, quadruplets that are actually double sets of identical twins, selectively mute twins, identical twins knowingly adopted by two different families and many more. I wish I could say I loved this book, but as with the author's other book on twins, and even more here, there is a terrible need of better editing!

The author has several quirks to her writing. She throws as many details as she can into each paragraph, often with a pretty much unrelated idea at the end of one! She loves to quote people, which is nice, but she quotes them with abandon, whether the quotes really have much to do with what is being written about. She describes people's looks and what they are wearing to an odd extent, and she often analyses people's feelings based on single statements. I think she's a remarkable researcher and that she truly cares about the people she writes about, but she is not a writer at heart, and she needs a little more help making her writing as good as her topics.

Dr. Segal has given us yet another delightful chance to learn more about who we are through the study of twins, this time using their unique stories. This book is a smooth read about different sets of multiples. Each story is compelling in its presentation of a different aspect of twins or other multiples. As an example, the story of triplets, two of which were stricken with multiple sclerosis, tells us so much about how nature (genetics) and nurture (environment) mix their influences on us. Just when you start to think one aspect starts to dominate the other one nudges itself into the human swirl that we are.

This book is a superb follow up to her more technical work shown in her first book, Entwined Lives. In contrast to that book, which was loaded with scientific facts and academic studies, she continues to tell us of the importance of twin studies through the lives of twins with unusual stories. Found in these stories are many of the conclusions and observations made in the first book.

Dr. Segal has a knack of packing a lot into a few words. I stopped marking the important sentences because every paragraph seemed to be a highlight. Also in this effort she reveals more about herself and her own twinship. It is obvious in this book her important research has resulted from both the outside and inside perspectives of twins.

This is a must read for any twin or anyone desiring to learn more about how we become who we are. It blasts past the typical twin anecdotes with new meaning as well as depth. Being an identical twin myself, I found both of Dr. Segal's books have helped me immensely in understanding my own twinship, and perhaps more importantly, the loss of my twin some years ago. I have found much comfort in knowing how and why natural clones are not perfect copies of each other.

Interesting enough, but the author went on and on and on for about four pages after I thought each chapter was done.

Twin expert Nancy Segal has managed to track down and interview various sets of interesting twins -- those who survived Mengele's horrific experiments during the Holocaust, "the firemen twins," who were separated at birth and twins who married other twins. I found the resulting book so fascinating, I devoured it in one weekend.

Congratulations on a job well done, Nancy.

This is a chit-chat book. There is little, if any data and not much delving into the details of theories about why twins are similar or different. A lot of anecdotes. It's OK for bedtime reading.

This is a fascinating study of many types of twins - the most interesting of which are identical twins who were separated at birth and reunited later in life! Being a Gemini, I have always been entranced by twins and this book is excellent in fulfilling that fascination. The author writes with skill, empathy and obvious love of and painstaking research of her subject! 4 Thumbs up!