As another reviewer said, and I can't think of a better word, this is an unnerving book. A slightly uncomfortable read, yet well written, unusual, and horribly believable.
For those readers who have, in the past, not been believed, this is definitely a bit of a painful read.
I'm not sure that I would want to read another book like this one, but it was fascinating and hard to put down. I think I would have preferred the earlier chance of a happy ending, but can see that the one the author chose was actually making a better book.

This wasn't the creepy thriller throughout that I hoped it would be and that the synopsis gave the impression it would be. It was slow at times and not as pacey as I'd hoped.

I enjoyed this. I love books with themes of family, especially siblings, so this ticked all the boxes. I found it a little slow in places but still fun

I had heard about this book when it first was published.
It got good hype.
Then some very confusing reviews.

I thought I’d wait until it all died down then forgot about it.
Until I realised I should have read this book already.

So I dived in.

By now most will know the concept of what this book is about.

I think it covers some sort of mental awareness to but I struggled with it.
The book goes back and forth in time.
That’s OK I’ve read many books like that but this one isn’t with ease for a reader.

Ann Morgan is a good writer however this one was a brain ache for me.
It needs full undivided attention

*I received a copy of this book from the Publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion*

I love a family drama mystery and the synopsis instantly pulled me in. Identical twins that swap places! surely the mother would realise or friends and family? Apart from the twins being identical in appearance their personalities are very different. Helen is the devious one, she has loads of friends and is confident, whereas Ellie is perhaps a bit behind for her age and has some social problems. One day Helen thinks it will be fun to play tricks on people by swapping identities and seeing whether they can tell. Only for Helen this is the biggest mistake of her life as Ellie doesn’t want to return to her former self and starts to reinvent herself and be Helen permanently. This lead Helen’s mental health to spiral out of control and becomes instantly labelled as a troublemaker by family and friends as she constantly tries to tell them that they have swapped. Years later when Helen has been cast out by her family, it’s only when a tragedy occurs that she is swept back into the drama by meeting her sister’s husband and daughter.

This book got a little confusing for me, I was having a little of a hard time of trying to keep up with who was who. At times I was skeptical towards the plot as it felt unrealistic in parts.The Mother was just an awful human being and treated her children badly.. This was difficult to read as Helen had such a tragic life and everything and one seemed to be against her. I would recommend reading if you enjoy family psychological drama.

Overall I rated this book 3/5 stars.

I don't know why, but I am sad when I read this book. I have to say this book is really sad, but sad on so many other levels

Beside myself by Ann Morgan.
A horrible prank goes wrong for two twins. Ellie and Helen decide to swap places aged six at first it's just a game but Ellie refuses to swap back. Helen develops behavioural problems. Will the deception ever be uncovered. I did not know what I feel about this book. It was a slow read for me and I really didn't like the mother. And as for Ellie. I have no words. I will give this 4* as although it was slow I couldn't help but to keep reading. Netgalley and Bloomsbury publishing plc.

One thing I can safely say from the start of this review is that Beside Myself by Ann Morgan proved to be quite unlike anything I’ve ever read before and I mean that in a good way. Whilst it turned out to be quite different from what I expected it to be I thought that it was a brilliantly clever, gripping and insightful novel. I most certainly do not regret reading it and can’t quite believe it’s taken me this long to finally do so!

This is a novel about identical twins, Helen and Ellie, who couldn’t be more different from eachother - Helen is the dominant and assertive twin who seems to excel at life whilst Ellie seems to find things just a little bit more difficult. One day, when they are just six years old Helen and Ellie decide to play a trick by changing their clothes and hairstyles to make people think that Helen is Ellie and vice versa. The swap isn’t meant to last for long but Ellie quite enjoys being Helen and doesn’t want to swap back, something which doesn’t please Helen in the slightest. With Ellie refusing to tell the truth, Helen can’t convince anyone that she’s not Ellie so that’s the way things stay with drastic consequences for both girls.

One thing that really made this book quite different from anything that I have ever read before is that it’s a book about twins and the relationship that exists between them. I found it extremely interesting to read of this throughout the novel, discovering so much about the differences that existed between both Helen and Ellie, seeing how they both adapted to the situation they found themselves in. Whilst we get a good insight into the life of the twin who was originally named Ellie, the book is told entirely from the perspective of the twin who was originally named Helen. Given that Helen was considered to be the dominant twin I feel that this is something that fits and works really well.

Throughout the novel, so much happened to the twins and whilst there were a few times that made me laugh there were other times that I found to be truly heartbreaking, so Beside Myself certainly made for extremely powerful reading. This is a story that alternates between the past and the present, each of which is told in a very different manner. Whilst at first this became quite confusing and it took me a while to adapt to Ann’s style of writing, I soon found that it became very easy to recognise which narrative was which. Overall I found Beside Myself to be quite a complex novel which blended a number of different themes, including those of identity and mental health, in an expert manner.

As a book that raised a few questions as it progressed which helped to keep me interested and keen to find out what would happen next, I’m really glad I read this novel and persevered with it when I at first struggled to get used to the way in which it was written. Whilst this may not have been the happiest book I’ve ever read it was a unique, well-constructed and sensitively written debut novel. I would certainly read more by Ann Morgan in the future!

We have twin girls - Helen and Eleanor - Helen being the older - and, so it is claimed, Ellie being oxygen deprived and thus brain damaged by having the cord round her neck at birth. Is it true? The mother is somewhat depressed it would seem without a man to support her and treats the girls very differently, reinforcing the idea that Ellie is different and a lesser child.
And we have Ellie's belief that she swapped places with Helen, at some point in their young childhood and that she is really Helen - and the behaviours have swapped too. Implying that the behaviour was learnt rather than being inbuilt.
I managed to read some 25% of the book but found that i could not cope with the thoughts of Smudge as portrayed by the writer and thus the style in which the story was told. I found myself missing large chunks of her thoughts on each page and skipping on and on to find a section I could understand.
I realise that the style was to indicate her confused state of mind but it made me too confused....