The Phantom Twin by Lisa Brown

Summary from Goodreads:

A young woman is haunted by the ghost of her conjoined twin, in Lisa Brown's The Phantom Twin, a sweetly spooky graphic novel set in a turn-of-the-century sideshow.

Isabel and Jane are the Extraordinary Peabody Sisters, conjoined twins in a traveling carnival freak show—until an ambitious surgeon tries to separate them and fails, causing Jane's death.

Isabel has lost an arm and a leg but gained a ghostly companion: Her dead twin is now her phantom limb. Haunted, altered, and alone for the first time, can Isabel build a new life that's truly her own?

Review:

I’ve always loved twin stories. I think it all started with those terrible 90’s movies with the Olsen twins…So the idea of twins who are physically attached to each other? And there’s a ghost? And there are blurbs by Neil Gaiman and Ransom Riggs… Count me in.

This story is dark! I should have known, with those blurbs. First off, the twins have a surgery to separate and one of them dies right away and becomes a ghost that haunts the other (who now is missing an arm and a leg)! Isabel perseveres through it all though. She goes back to the circus, stands up to bullies, and falls in love.

I wasn’t expecting it to be so sad. I guess I was expecting more of an adventure/horror story. And I got this dark, sad, but equally riveting story of these twins who survived quite a lot. I found the freak show community to be really interesting. I’m glad the girls had a “home” there for as long as they did, even though it wasn’t always great.

The artwork in this book is what makes it though. The way the ghost is a mirror image of Isabel is just so creepy and spot-on. I love how the tattoo parlor was drawn too, and the circus. I easily could have kept turning pages and looked at more. It was really just stunning to look at. I loved it. All in all, this wasn’t what I was expecting. It was sadder and darker. I couldn’t put it down. I read it in one sitting. The art was gorgeous. And I really liked it. I give it an 8/10.